A tepid report on housing starts sent stocks into a tizzy and major indexes slipped from their year highs as solid earnings reports from Apple Inc. to Caterpillar were overlooked by anxious investors.  A rebound in dollar from its 14-month lows also added to the downward pressure and hurt commodities, sending energy and material shares lower. 

Weakness in share sent Treasury prices higher, with the 10-year closing up 13/32, to 102 11/32.  The yield fell to 3.34%, from 3.39% late Monday.  On Tuesday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average fell 50.71 points, or 0.50%, to 10,041.48.  The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index retreated 6.85 points, or 0.62%, at 1,091.06 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 12.85 points, or 0.59%, to 2,163.47.  Market breadth was negative.  On the New York Stock Exchange, declining shares beat those that rose in price two to one on volume of 1.24 billion

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DuPont (DD) consolidated its 23 businesses into 14 in an effort to streamline its operations. The 14 businesses are Pioneer Hi-Bred, Crop Protection, Nutrition & Health, Electronics & Communications, Performance Coatings, Performance Polymers, Packaging & Industrial Polymers, Protection Technologies, Building Innovations, Safety Resources, Chemical Solutions, Fluoroproducts, Titanium Technologies and Applied BioSciences.   DuPont also redefined its reporting segments to provide greater transparency. The new segments would be Agriculture & Nutrition (Pioneer Hi-Bred, Crop Protection, Nutrition & Health), Electronics & Communications, Performance Coatings, Performance Materials (Performance Polymers and Packaging & Industrial Polymers), Safety & Protection (Protection Technologies, Building Innovations, Safety Resources), Performance Chemicals (Chemical Solutions, Fluoroproducts, Titanium Technologies) and Pharmaceuticals (Applied BioSciences).

As part of the consolidation, the chemical maker commented that it eliminated the five group vice president positions and their supporting business structures associated with the platforms that house its businesses. The group vice presidents have currently been reabsorbed

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Employers cut 539,000 jobs in April, the lowest total in six months, but the Labor Department said the unemployment rate still soared to 8.9%, from 8.5% in March. While some analysts viewed the latest report as a sign of a nascent economic recovery, the unemployment numbers are almost certain to head higher before the recession is declared over.

Last week’s report could have been worse if the numbers hadn’t been held in check by a burst of federal government hiring of temporary workers to prepare for the 2010 Census.

The report was also skewed by the way the government categorizes the unemployed.  As Money Morning previously reported, if laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the numbers skyrocket.

In fact, if the latest unemployment report had included those workers, the rate would have soared

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Huntsman Corp. (HUN) posted a wider-than-expected first-quarter loss as all of its businesses suffered at the hands of lower demand.

Shares are down more than 8% so far today.

The chemical maker lost 55 cents per share in the quarter, excluding items, while analysts expected a loss of 21 cents.

Sales declined 33% year over year to $1.69 billion.

Huntsman aims to cut back on costs to counter the falling demand for its products. In January, the company said that it would shed about 10% of its work force. It had also announced plans to slash capital spending.

Analysts, on an average, are expecting a loss of 27 cents per share for the current year, wider than a 2 month-ago projection for a loss of 23 cents.

The trading volume of this Zacks #4 Rank ("Sell") company is currently 8.6 million shares, unusually higher than its daily average

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The ongoing economic downturn has played its part in Rohm & Haas' (ROH) latest move to eliminate 5.7% of its work force. The company is also closing units and initiating a freeze on discretionary spending and employee salaries.

ROH expects to save $90 million annually with these actions. However, the chemical maker expects a restructuring and asset impairment charges of $90 million in the fourth quarter.

Rohm & Haas also mentioned that it expects fourth-quarter profit to beat the consensus estimate. Analysts are expecting a profit of 67 cents.

The company is a Zacks #4 Rank ("Sell").

"ROH" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?Zacks Investment Research

Monday December 29, 2009 Navivest

Shares of chemical maker Dow Chemical (DOW) are off $3.82 or 20.19% after the company announced that the government of Kuwait had cancelled a planned 50-50 joint venture deal.

When the deal was first announced, Dow Chemical announced that it would receive $9.5 billion in cash from Petrochemical Industries Company, while Dow Chemical would contribute the physical assets of the joint venture. This valued the deal at $19 billion.

The new company that was to have been created under the deal, K-Dow Petrochemicals, was envisioned to be a leading global supplier of essential petrochemicals and plastics that manufactured and marketed polyethylene, ethyleneamines, ethanolamines, polypropylene and polycarbonate.

On December 1, 2008, the deal was renegotiated at the behest of the Kuwaiti government and under the new terms of the deal, Petrochemical Industries Company would contribute $7.5 billion for its 50 percent stake and $1.5 billion of that

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U.S. employers cut 533,000 jobs in November… Oil prices near lowest level in four years… Market looking at $40 as slowdown hurts demand Oil fell below $42 a barrel on Friday, its lowest since January 2005, after a gloomy report on U.S. job losses underscored concern about weakening energy demand in the world’s top consumer.

U.S. employers axed payrolls by a shocking 533,000 in November for the weakest performance in 34 years, government data showed.

“You can’t get much uglier than this,” said Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York. “The economy has just collapsed and has gone into a free fall.” U.S. crude plunged as low as $41.77 and by 1547 GMT was trading at $41.86, down $1.81. London’s Brent crude was off $1.58 at $40.70.

Many dealers and analysts expect oil to test the psychologically important $40

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At the end of a week of gloom and doom, stocks are finally on the rebound on Friday. Taking the cue, chemical shares too are on their way up after surviving a terrible Thursday when, according to AP, most of them took a nosedive following the announcement by four companies of force majeures -- a legal clause that excuses a party from liabilities for not being able to fulfill its obligations due to unforeseen developments -- thanks to the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Ike.

But they threw off their shackles on Friday. Dupont (DD), which fell 46 cents to $45.24 a day earlier, was up by 3.77% to $47.67. Keeping it company was Dow Chemical (DOW), the only one to have bucked the pullback on Thursday, with a surge of 4.16% to trade at $37.31.

But the stock to really watch out for is Olin Corp. (OLN)

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