now can put some image to my earlier & still holding watchlist either their base is nice set up or going to new highs































louyah analyst report for reading pressure

Six-Day Win Streak Ends Despite Slew Of Good News

Stocks edged lower Tuesday in yet another low-volume affair.

At the bell, the NYSE composite, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq each slipped 0.1%. The Dow industrials crept lower fractionally. These meager losses served to snap the market's six-day winning streak.

Nasdaq volume fell 3%, and the NYSE's dipped 9%.

The market barely budged in the face of three crucial pieces of economic news.

A survey of consumers showed rising confidence; chain-store sales rose in the week before Christmas; and home prices, which had been steadying after a monthslong bloodbath, showed further signs of stabilizing.

Improvements in these crucial and much-damaged areas must be heartening to those still shell-shocked from the financial crisis.

So what kept the market from bolting higher?

Maybe it's the thought that too much improvement will force the Fed to drain some excess liquidity — raise interest rates.

Or maybe it's the last few days of the year, and many professional investors have closed their books and have gone fishing.

A few top-rated stocks moved up in heavy volume, but just a few.

E-payment processor CyberSource (CYBS) shot up 4% in more than twice its usual volume. That's the stock's seventh straight gain, although Tuesday's rise lured by far the biggest turnover.

The stock stands 8% above the 18.99 buy point from a cup with handle.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) rose 2.31 to 79.97 in above-average trade. The stock on Monday had taken out the 76.60 buy point from a double-bottom base. Green Mountain is now 4% past that trigger.

The dull action may lead you to think nothing is going on. Au contraire. The market is building a healthy posture for the new year.

The distribution day count has fallen to four for the major indexes except the Nasdaq composite, which is at one. This is a big improvement from recent counts that got as high as six for some averages.

And plenty of quality stocks are setting up.

Outsourcer Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) pushed past a flat base a week ago, but volume stalled and so did the stock. Cognizant may be building a handle to that base.

Shoe retailer Steven Madden (SHOO), which enjoys better profit growth than sales gains, may be building a handle to a cup base.

Argentina-based MercadoLibre (MELI), Latin America's biggest e-commerce company, is in the fourth week of what may be a new base.

Brazilian homebuilder Gafisa (GFA), with stunning fundamentals, is just pennies below its 10-week moving average. If it can regain that line, it could be well on its way to finishing a new base.

Apple (AAPL) broke out of a flat base Thursday. It's less than 1% past the 208.10 buy point.

Generic-Drug Firms Prosper Amid Drive To Cut Health Costs

Wade through all the fevered rhetoric surrounding health care reform, and you'll find one point nearly everyone agrees on: Anything that can lower costs is a good thing.

That partly explains why generic-drug makers have enjoyed a months-long rally on Wall Street despite the manic ebb and flow of the reform debate.

Generic drugs save patients money. Many are 70% cheaper than their name-brand counterparts. Patients saved an estimated $121 billion in 2008 thanks to generics, according to data from the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.

Since soaring prescription-drug prices are a big contributor to the rising cost of health care, lawmakers have shied away from any reforms that would hinder access to copycat drugs.

"Generics are seen as a magic bullet when it comes to cost savings," said Les Funtleyder, an analyst at Miller Tabak. "Generic-drug makers are much less at risk than managed care or Big Pharma."

Gains Across The Sector

The 17 stocks in the sector touched a record high on Tuesday.

Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA), the biggest generic by market cap, has shot up more than 7% since Dec. 17. It hit an all-time closing high of 56.27 on Monday.

Other generic-drug makers reaching record highs this month include China Sky Medical (CSKI), Hospira (HSP), Perrigo (PRGO) and Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (RDY).

Hi-Tech Pharmacal (HITK) briefly pushed to a 3 1/2-year high of 29.64 on Tuesday. As recently as early June, its shares traded for less than 10.

Par Pharmaceutical (PRX) has enjoyed a similar run. The stock hit a two-year high of 27.23 on Wednesday.

Watson Pharmaceuticals (WPI) set a 5 1/2-year high this month, while Mylan (MYL) established a 2 1/2-year high.

Plenty of other medical sectors have rallied — notably HMOs — as Democrats rein in health care proposals. But the generic-drug sector probably would have continued to rise regardless of what happened, observers say.

"Generics play well in the health reform discussion, no matter what form it has taken," said Ken Cacciatore, an analyst at Cowen & Co.

About the only real legislative threat to the industry — the "re-importation" of cheap drugs from Canada for sale here — isn't likely to happen.

Some Democrats favor re-importation because it would force drugmakers, including generics, to lower prices to compete. But the proposal has met with resistance from the broader drug industry as well as most members of Congress.

"You can only have re-importation if the Food and Drug Administration can guarantee the safety of the supply," said Mick Kolassa, chairman of Medical Marketing Economics. "The FDA doesn't have the resources right now to do that. Re-importation really doesn't have enough support right now."

President Obama, who supported re-importation as a senator, doesn't want to alienate big drugmakers that have promised modest price cuts and support for his overall health reforms.

Generic-drug stocks have also benefited from comparatively cheap valuations, experts say.

Most stocks in the sector are still rebounding from a massive sell-off that began in the fall of 2008 and didn't end until early March. The sector lost more than a third of its value during a 5 1/2-month period starting in September 2008.

Unrealistic expectations contributed to the sell-off, Kolassa says. He points to Zocor, a cholesterol fighter that set sales records when it went off-patent in the U.S. in 2006.

"It was the first time a generic came out and actually took share from other brands," Kolassa said. "Some people thought that was the beginning of a trend. There were these massive expectations that didn't pan out."

Getting Back To Square One

The generic-drug sector also got caught up in Wall Street's overall meltdown in late 2008, Funtleyder said: "The group got decimated along with everything else, so some of the momentum this year is just gaining back what it lost. The valuations are inexpensive. They just had to improve the fundamentals."

Many of the top generic-drug firms have produced solid financials in the last few quarters. Teva has been the standard-bearer, running off eight straight quarters of double-digit earnings growth. Analysts expect the trend to continue in the next four quarters.

Watson, Hospira and Mylan all expect double-digit earnings growth this year and next.

"There's been very good new product flow from all of the companies," Cacciatore said. "All the businesses have an international component, and clearly the weakening dollar has been beneficial. All of the companies continue to generate good free cash flow, and the valuations are still not overly expensive."

The generic-drug industry should have plenty of room to grow. Around $70 billion worth of name-brand drugs — including Lipitor and Plavix — will lose their patent protection by 2012.

"In the next 18 months to three years you've got these big sellers coming off-patent, and that will definitely help the generics sector," Funtleyder said.

The stakes are so high that Big Pharma firms and generic-drug makers have stepped up their legal battles.

Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST) recently announced that a trial date has been set for patent litigation vs. Teva for violating Cubist's patent on the antibiotic Cubicin.

In another high-profile case, Pfizer (PFE) is in a battle against Dr. Reddy's over a generic version of Lipitor, the blockbuster cholesterol fighter.

Dr. Reddy's in October notified Pfizer that it was seeking FDA approval for a generic version of the drug, even though Pfizer had earlier made a deal with India's Ranbaxy Laboratories for a generic launch in the U.S. in November 2011.

Kolassa figures Dr. Reddy's challenge is worth the risk.

Despite Pfizer's pact with Ranbaxy, there's still a chance regulators could overrule the deal if they find Ranbaxy can't fill U.S. demand for the drug.

A Critical Six Months

Meanwhile, the first drugmaker approved for the generic version of a drug gets six months of exclusivity to sell it. For a drug like Lipitor, which had $12 billion in 2008 sales, those six months can send a company's sales into orbit.

"Some can triple or quadruple in size in six months," Kolassa said. "For Dr. Reddy's, moving to be first in line is worth the legal cost. Pfizer can make an agreement, but it can't control the way the FDA makes its decision."

have u all done ur post mortem neither have i, still work in progress some food for thoughts...



since got so many stocks to research, was thinking that some of u can assist to check up on stocks, as per thread version1 which I posted
unfortunately, we all got different style & objective, so my last year resolution, can forget about it



base on the best stock as above, wat made them move? able to dissect? guess not
since they were not in my watchlist, still got a long way for me to study abt roket too





Slow Recovery In '10 May Bar Notable Hiring

Having emerged in 2009 from the deepest downturn since the Great Depression, the economy enters 2010 with momentum but plenty of baggage and a steep climb ahead.

The consensus is that the economy is fit enough to tackle that hill in 2010, though it will likely be at least a hard trudge, if not a frustratingly slow crawl.

The outlook is a combination of "the good, the bad and the ugly," said Martin Regalia, chief economist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "The good news is that we're growing again. The (bad) is that we are probably not going to grow at a very high rate. The ugly part is that in the long run, we're facing some truly daunting problems" tied to out-of-control fiscal policy.

Unlike the brisk rebounds from the steep downturns of 1974 and 1982 that quickly lowered unemployment, Regalia sees pedestrian 3% growth in 2010 — and he's a bit ahead of the consensus.

Forecasters polled by Blue Chip Economics expect the U.S. to add 1.1 million jobs in 2010, leaving joblessness just shy of 10% at year-end.

The hit to incomes, as well as stock and real estate wealth, is likely to restrain consumer spending. Nor does Regalia expect much of a lift from business investment. Throw in tighter lending and a need to wean the economy off stimulus, and it likely will be a drawn-out recovery.

"Everything is on a slow-worm turn and it's going to take a tremendous amount of patience," said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. financial economist at IHS Global Insight.

Still, some forecasters argue the economy won't have to grow fast to avoid a jobless recovery like the one that followed the 2001 recession.

"Past job cuts have virtually eliminated what were minimal hiring excesses and are likely now creating some pent-up demand," wrote Morgan Stanley economists Richard Berner and David Greenlaw.

They expect hiring to pick up in Q1 as companies boost output to keep inventories from getting too low. That will lift household incomes and spending.

Berner and Greenlaw see a renewed correction in home prices as the biggest threat to their outlook.

"We do worry that rising foreclosures could increase ... the pressure on home prices, given the 'shadow inventory' of yet-to-be foreclosed homes, reckoned by some to be 5-7 million," they wrote.

Excess supply could show up over the next several months as two props to housing demand end.

By the end of March, the Federal Reserve plans to wrap up its $1.25 trillion in purchases of mortgage- backed securities guaranteed by Freddie Mac (FRE), Fannie Mae (FNM) and Ginnie Mae. That will boost mortgage rates somewhat, analysts expect. At the end of April, homebuyer tax credits of $8,000 for first-time buyers and $6,500 for move-up buyers are due to expire.

The Conference Board's latest consumer confidence report showed that only 1.9% of respondents plan to buy a home within six months — the lowest figure since 1982. Auto- buying intentions hit a record low.

Renewed hiring would lighten consumer moods, but it's unclear when the small-business sector will emerge from its funk.

More small firms still plan on reducing staff than hiring, according to the latest survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. While weak sales are the top issue, worries about higher taxes and big government also loom large.

"There is not much to look forward to here and good reason to 'keep your powder dry,'" wrote William Dunkelberg, NFIB's chief economist.

Another risk could come from an unwinding of stimulus, which is due to peak by midyear. The House approved about $175 billion in new stimulus in December. If the Senate follows, that could push the weaning from stimulus into 2011.

By then, the economy may have shed enough baggage to keep trudging ahead. But income and investment tax cuts for higher earners expire at the end of 2010, making fiscal policy an even bigger head wind.

"As long as you've got the prospect of higher future taxes on the horizon, that will put a damper on activity," Bethune said.



This post has been edited by sulifeisgreat: Jan 2 2010, 05:25 AM