We Need More Refineries. This Guy May Build One

Stocks are lower on a disappointing durable goods
report and weakness in a Dow component.
 If transportation is
stripped out, orders fell. May durable goods orders rose 5.5%, much higher than
expected. Ex-transportationbranso, it fell -0.2%. New home sales for May rose 2.1% to
1.298 million units, more than expected.

Citigroup
(
C |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
is swapping its asset management business for Legg
Mason’s

(
LM |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
broker dealer unit in a $3.7 billion deal.

Micron
(
MU |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
swung to a Q3 loss of 0.20 vs. the expected 0.02
profit.

Guidant
(
GDT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
is advising physicians about product safety and
telling them not to implant certain devices. Some of its defibrillator devices
are subject to failure–and said the FDA may classify it as a recall. The
company is in a deal with Johnson & Johnson
(
JNJ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
at $76/share.

Cephalon
(
CEPH |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
will pay Alkermes
(
ALKS |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
$490 million
for the development and rights to Vivitrex, a monthly shot for alcoholism. The
drug has been shown to cut heavy drinking from 19 days a month to 1.5 to 2.5
days per month. Vivitrex releases a drug daily that reduces the pleasurable
effects of drinking.

IBM will add 14,000 jobs in India this year, while cutting 13,000 jobs
in Europe and the U.S.

Richard Branson may build a refinery. The U.K. billionaire said his
Virgin Group Ltd. will decide in a few months–after a study–whether to build a
refinery. Says Branson: “I‘ve been considering building an
oil refinery because there’s an enormous shortage of oil-refinery capacity and,
as an airline owner, the more oil-refinery capacity that can be created,
hopefully we can drive prices down.”

Strong sectors are:   Brokers
(
$XBD.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

+1.69%   Biotech  
(
$BTK.X.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

+0.28%   Banks
(
$BKX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
+0.22%   

      

Weak sectors are:   Airlines  
(
$XAL.X.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

-2.40%     Computer Hardware
(
$HWI.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)

-1.40%     Software
(
$GSO.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
-1.38%   

Dow -55.01 10365.20
Nasdaq -10.51 2060.15
S&P 500 -3.38 1197.35

The dollar is -0.29 at
88.83

Crude Oil is +0.08 at
59.50

Gold is -2.20 at 438.80

ce=”Arial” size=”2″ face=”Arial”>Volume is 1.340 billion on the NYSE and
2.025 billion on the Nasdaq.

Market breadth is negative.

NYSE Issues
Advancing 1300 Up Vol 261
Declining 1728 Down Vol 426
1.33 1.63
Nasdaq
Advancing 1078 Up Vol 180
Declining 1723 Down Vol 423
1.59 2.90

Stocks in the News

NitroMed
(
NTMD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
received FDA approval for BiDil to treat heart
failure in Black patients.

Corinthian Colleges
(
COCO |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
was cut to hold from buy at Jeffries.

Alcoa
(
AA |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
is restructuring; the company will cut 6500 jobs. The
stock is trading at multi-year lows.

Morgan Stanley cut the steel sector to cautious and US Steel
(
X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
and
Steel Dynamics
(
STLD |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)
to equal weight from overweight..

Brice Wightman