SOX has held above its 50dma for 3 weeks now, bouncing repeatedly at that level.
Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly halted a record six-month slide in January, an advance that may not be sustained as job losses climb. The 1 percent increase followed a 3 percent drop the prior month bloomberg.com
...three-month dollar Libor inched up to 1.23% on disappointment about the Treasury Department's financial-stability plan, but has been easing since the start of the year and is down sharply since its peak of 4.82% on Oct. 10... Also in financial markets, issuance of high-rated corporate bonds is soaring, signaling that markets could be getting back on track to serving their core purpose -- providing funds to firms that need them. Short-term corporate credit markets also have shown signs of improvement. Interest rates on short-term commercial-paper financing agreements have come down, and firms have become less reliant on a special Federal Reserve facility serving commercial-paper borrowers...In the U.S., the Institute for Supply Management's January survey of manufacturing purchasing managers ticked up to 35.6 in January from 32.9 in December. The January level still implies deep pessimism among purchasing managers, but the small increase for the month suggests that their outlook could be stabilizing at low levels. A similar measure for the euro-zone manufacturing sector, the Purchasing Managers Index from Markit Economics, also nudged up in January, to 34.4 from December's record low of 33.9. China's official purchasing managers' index also staged its second monthly rise in January.
online.wsj.com
(Over the last 3 months, tentative signs of a bottom in finance markets, manufacturing, consumer confidence, retail sales...and stocks.)
The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose for a fourth straight week, reaching a record...The U.S. has lost 3.57 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. bloomberg.com
...2006 peak about $25 trillion of residential home value. Today, that’s off almost 25 percent. That takes it down to the $18 trillion range, which is a $7 trillion loss...housing busts don’t last. But there’s no way prices are going to bounce back to where they were. The reason is simple: Banks were funding houses at eight and nine times a married couple’s combined income. They were doing that through CDOs and government-guaranteed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. Those funding sources are gone. Now they are lending at four to five times combined incomes. bloomberg.com
European Central Bank board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said he’s concerned investors could lose confidence in governments unless they contain spending, raising the threat of a crisis in national finances. “There is a risk that the mistrust that there is today in financial markets, in the banking system, is transformed into mistrust in states,” Bini Smaghi told the European Parliament in Brussels today. That could hobble the ability of some countries to issue debt... bloomberg.com
Congress borrows another 789B$:
online.wsj.com
BlackBerry maker Research in Motion on Wednesday forecast profit at the low end of expectations... The company, which competes with Apple and Nokia, said net subscriber account additions were running 20 percent higher than the 2.9 million it forecast on Dec. 18. New smartphones like the touch-screen Storm or high-end Bold were attracting new sales, the company said, but existing customers, mainly businesses, were not upgrading as frequently as expected, crimping profit margins. nytimes.com
(cellphones, even smart ones, are, in the end, commodities. High margins are unsustainable.)
Energy news:
Vestas, which just reported its best-ever sales and profit numbers, is hedging its optimistic 2009 outlook based on what happens in the U.S., which is by far Vestas’ biggest market. The company expects a 19% jump in sales this year to 7.2 billion euros—but only if wind orders pick up substantially in the first quarter...If the wind market doesn’t recover from the near-total “collapse” in the fourth quarter, Vestas said, the company will rethink its planned 1.2 billion euros in capital spending this year, including expanding three U.S. factories. If orders don’t pick up globally, Vestas warned it would have to “seriously consider” layoffs....It is of “paramount importance” that the U.S. tackle problems like the national transmission network to boost wind-power’s long-term prospects... blogs.wsj.com
The largest utility in California, squeezed by rising demand for electricity and looming state deadlines to curb fossil fuels, has signed a deal to buy solar power from seven immense arrays of mirrors, towers and turbines to be installed in the Mojave Desert...The contracts amount to the world’s largest single deal for new solar energy capacity, said officials from the utility, Southern California Edison, and BrightSource Energy, the company that would build and run the plants. When fully built, the solar arrays on a sunny day would supply 1,300 megawatts of electricity, somewhat more than a modern nuclear power plant...Thousands of small mirrors focus intense desert sunlight on a central tower, where it generates steam to drive a turbine. nytimes.com
(this is solar thermal, not PV)
Ethanol from Cellulose going nowhere:
Congress hoped that advanced biofuels would overcome the longstanding controversies associated with corn ethanol, including the contention that its production raises food prices. Congress started small, decreeing that industry produce 100 million gallons of advanced biofuels next year and 250 million gallons in 2011. But it is becoming clear that even these modest targets will not be met. Producing the advanced fuels entails breaking down a tough material, cellulose, that is abundant in corn cobs, wood chips and other biological waste, then converting it to liquid fuel. While scientists have proven it can be done, the cost is still high, and little if any cellulosic ethanol is being produced at commercial scale...Small, mostly private companies that go by names like Range Fuels, Poet and BlueFire Ethanol have built pilot plants and hope to move into commercial production. But private investment in advanced biofuels has plummeted since the economy went sour late last year, and it is unclear if the industry can scale up. “Cellulosic ethanol is something that is always five years away and five years later you get to the point where it’s still five years away,” said Aaron Brady, an energy expert at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. nytimes.com
Hamster Power:
...energy from a hamster wearing a small jacket affixed to the device as the rodent ran on an exercise wheel and scratched itself.... technologyreview.com
Video of the hamster generating 70 millivolts:
technologyreview.com
disclosure: bought more KLIC at 1.74 today. |
