It will be interesting to see how the group acts today after being downgraded this morning by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Citing "a period of rapid replenishment of inventory and normalization of semi shipments to 'true' consumption levels, inventories in the supply chain are approaching a level suggesting a modest overshoot vs. equilibrium levels," the broker said. INTC, TXN, MRVL, & LSI were cut to neutral from a buy rating while MXIM, NSM, POWI, & MCHP were cut to underperform from a neutral rating.

After conducting a survey of 25 rheumatologists, Morgan has more confidence in the pending results due on Monday and assigns a 70% probablility of success. According to the firm, most of the physicians surveyed were "widely enthusiastic about Benlysta, but more interestingly 84% (21/25) predicted that Bliss-76 either had a 'good chance' of success or would 'absolutely' work. Assuming the drug gets approved, this sampling of doctors stated that they would initially treat about 28% of their patients with the drug.

For the week, the Dow and S&P and Nasdaq were all down slightly, with the Dow losing 0.24%, the S&P 500 losing 0.74% and the Nasdaq losing 0.10%.

	Close	% Change	% Change	YTD %	20 dma	50 dma	200 dma
	10/23/2009	(1 Week)	(Month-to-Date)
Dow	9,972.18	-0.24	2.68	13.63	9845.86	9660.62	8556.98
S & P	1,079.60	-0.74	2.13	19.52	1069.70	1046.29	914.16
Nasdaq	2,154.70	-0.10	1.52	36.63	2130.98	2080.12	1773.62

After nearly doubling from its February lows of 2146 to its most recent highs of 4045, the Transports seem to have become very toppy in here and should bear watching to see if recent multi-month support in the 3600-3700 range will hold. Conversely, any move through recent highs above 4045 would suggest that another up-leg is set to begin for the group.

VECO caught our eye in late July when the company reported an 86% sequential jump in its orders for Q2. LED & solar orders accounted for 58% of this backlog as LED manufacturers increased production for TV and laptop backlighting applications. While these orders were impressive, VECO also stated it was experiencing further momentum in the beginning of Q3, receiving orders for more than $110 million of its TurboDisc metal-organic chemical-vapor deposition (MOCVD) systems from key Korean and Taiwanese LED manufacturers.

1. Large-cap tech moves to fresh 52-week highs: One of the most impressive aspects to last week’s action were the moves in large-cap tech names such as AAPL, AMZN, BIDU, CRM, EBAY, GOOG, IBM and SY. With these tech bellwethers rising to fresh 52-week highs, on massive volume, we are looking for further institutional inflows to these names. This should create a herd-like mentality around this group going into year-end.

MONDAY:

In early September, NVMI announced that its revenues for Q3 are expected to increase more than 40% sequentially over the Q2 results, due to an expanding backlog for its Stand Alone Optical CD system.

First let me define Bizarro World for those out there not familiar with the Superman analogy. Bizarro World (paraphrasing from Wikipedia) is a fictional planet where duplicates of Superman and his compatriots lived. But these Bizarro duplicates have characteristics that are different than the normal Superman and Lois Lane. These Bizarro duplicates do the opposite of what normal Superman characters do. Bizarro World nurtures the Bizarro characters with the motto, “do the opposite of what the normal world does.”

Below you will find closing prices for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq as of the close of October 2, 2009. I have included year-to-date stats and important moving averages as well.

Ken Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America (BAC), will be relinquishing his position as CEO before the end of the year. What went on behind the scenes that led to his ouster will remain unknown, at least for the time being. There is speculation that the board of directors forced him out because of building government pressure from the government. New York Attorney General Cuomo has made comments about Lewis; Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Fed, has denied the accusations that the Fed forced Ken Lewis into approving the deal between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.

Class, there is this second income statement called “Other Comprehensive Income” or O.C.I. that public companies use, that is usually placed deep in the 10–K, that could impact reported earnings, and that most on Wall Street were unaware of.

Below you will find closing prices for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq as of the close of September 25, 2009. I have included year-to-date stats and important moving averages as well.

This was an old quote I used to hear the great PBS announcer make regarding the equity markets on TV in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I first started watching the Nightly Business Report.

When you stop to consider how portable electronics have begun to enjoy the ubiquity of cigarettes in the 1960s, the appeal of this product and iGo’s stock starts to make a lot of sense. To that end, the positive catalysts for IGOI are also becoming apparent in the market.

While stalwarts like Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG) can be expected to see a pick-up in their search business as the economy slowly improves, a small behavioral targeting company named interClick Inc. (ICLK.OB) has seen its business accelerate of late as well. ICLK has been gaining new clients and market share in the fast growing behavioral targeting ad market and it appears to be just getting started.

First off, management recently announced that it will retire $69.5 million of $6.375 Convertible Senior Notes through the issuance of 9% Convertible Senior Notes and a payment of $5 million.

Below you will find closing prices for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq as of the close of September 11, 2009. I have included year-to-date stats and important moving averages as well.

Below you will find closing prices for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq as of the close of September 4, 2009. I have included year-to-date stats and important moving averages as well.