RBA cuts 100 BPS…  It IS a recession!  Paulson to ruffle feathers?  Yen to rally hard? And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Right out of the starters blocks this morning, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) pulled the rug right out from under the “high yield status” of their economy, with another HUGE rate cut overnight… This time, the RBA cut 100 BPS, to an internal cash rate of 4.25%. This brings the total since September to 300 BPS! WOW! Talk about effectively unwinding seven years of tightening! The statement following the rate announcement leads me to believe that the RBA is probably finished cutting rates for now… It will be a wait-n-see what happens globally, before the RBA entertains any talk of further rate cuts… At least that’s my opinion!

Had a long talk with the legal beagles yesterday… The just don’t like what / how I say things. This all stems

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Airline stocks are enjoying a sharp upswing today. The industry is recovering strongly as fuel prices tumble. And investors are also encouraged by the Delta (NYSE:DAL) and Northwest (NYSE:NWA) merger. But Andrew Snyder says this remains a high-risk sector for stock investors.

More from Today’s Financial News:

After nearly a decade of getting kicked around by the nation’s investors, airlines are finally starting to get some positive attention. More importantly, the barrens of the friendly skies are finally starting to look like profitable ventures.

Notice, however, that I “starting” to “look” like profitable ventures. As of last quarter, the only major airline to post a profit was AMR Corp. (NYSE:AMR), the owner of American Airlines. And its earnings were a mere pittance of total revenues.

All the rest, companies like Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV), Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL), and United Airlines (NYSE:UAUA), all lost significant

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In the battle for supremacy in the aircraft business, there are only two real players - Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) and Airbus (EPA:EAD).  These two companies compete for market share in commercial and military planes, with demand far exceeding each company’s manufacturing ability, and both have a long order backlog.  Some of Boeing’s customers, for example, will wait as long as five years before the planes they ordered are delivered.  And while they fill these orders, both companies must keep innovating.  As oil prices continue to soar, and airline companies like Delta and American Airlines struggle with tight margins, planes that fly faster, fit more passengers, and consume less fuel are at a premium.

And so each company has designed its own new super-plane - for Airbus, the A380, and for Boeing the 787 Dreamliner.  The Airbus plane has already debuted (its first flight was in October 2007),

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Just skimming through all the restructuring/firings of late [May 21: American Airlines Cutting Jobs and Routes], I am wondering out loud where will all these people go to work next? Just looking at the airline industry, in the past week or two aloneContinental(CAL) became the latest airline to announce cutbacks in its schedule, saying it will chop fourth-quarter domestic mainline capacity by 11%, resulting in about 3,000 job losses.On Wednesday, United Airlines, a unit of UAL(UAUA), announced plans to reduce its fleet by 100 aircraft, taking out 17% to 18% of its mainline domestic capacity by 2009, and eliminate several thousand jobs.American Airlines, a unit of AMR(AMR), said it would lower mainline domestic capacity by 11% to 12% in the fourth quarter, retiring at least ...

Orbitz Worldwide (OWW) plan on offering 39.1 million shares at a range of $16-$18. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Lehman are lead managing the deal