The video clips below provide a handy summary of the reports expected on the economic, financial and corporate front around the globe during the week ahead.

US: Housing data, holiday sales Investors will hear a lot about housing next week, with data on existing and new home sales coming. Hewlett-Packard will release results, and a gauge of holiday season sales will come on Black Friday.

Europe: LSE, Remy Cointreau report The London Stock Exchange, drinks company Remy Cointreau and electronics retailer DSG International report results. Consumer confidence data to hit in Germany and France.

Asia: GDP, auto makers in focus GDP reports from Taiwan, Philippines and Thailand will be in the spotlight next week, along with reports

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November 20, 2009 ndash; Analyst Comments ndash; Cowenrsquo;s Rob Stone weighed in on Suntechrsquo;s (NYSE:STP) Q3 financial results this morning noting that given the delayed ramp of Pluto and thin-film production, and outstanding GSF A/R exposure, he thinks shares are fairly valued. He maintains a NEUTRAL rating on the stock. Q3 Results Suntech (NYSE:STP) reported Q3 revenues of $473.1 million, compared with revenues of $594.4 million for the same period last year, and $320.9 million in Q209. Gross margins in Q3 were 17.7%, down from 18.5% in Q2, and 21.5% in Q308. Net income was $30,1, or $0.16 per diluted ADS, compared with $42.5 million for the same period last year and $9.6 million in Q208. Highlights for the quarter included hitting 16.53% conversion efficiency. Management increased its FY09 shipment target from 600MW to a range of 640MW to 660MW, and an increase in total cell and module production capacity to ...

This post provides links to a number of interesting articles I have read over the past few days that you may also enjoy.

• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph): Is $6,300 fair value for gold? November 19, 2009. The last parabolic spike in gold took off when central banks joined the fray in the 1970s, hoarding bullion with the same enthusiasm as gold bugs. Dylan Grice from Société Générale says it smells much the same today. He sees an eerie similarity between the decision of India’s central bank to buy half the IMF’s entire sale of gold, and the move by France’s central bank to start converting dollars into gold in 1965.

• Gregory Zuckerman (The Wall Street Journal): John Paulson making big new bet on gold, November 19, 2009. John Paulson, who scored about $20 billion of profits between 2007 and early

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Gap Inc. (GPS), which announces third-quarter results after today's closing bell, just declared a quarterly dividend of $0.085 per share, which translates into an industry-leading dividend yield of 1.5%. The company also reported sales growth for the month of October.

Company Description

Gap Inc. is a global specialty retailer that sells clothing, accessories and personal care products for men, women, children and babies under the Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime and Athleta brands. The company operates stores in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Ireland and Japan.

Gap also has franchise agreements with unaffiliated franchisees to operate Gap and Banana Republic stores in many other countries around the world. Under these agreements, third parties operate or will operate stores that sell apparel, purchased from Gap, under Gap's brand names.

Estimates are Bullish Ahead of Earnings Announcement

Analysts polled by Zacks have been upbeat on GPS ahead of today's

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – November 16, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp (MSFT), Quality Systems Inc. (QSII), Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc. (MDRX) and Cerner Corp. (CERN).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

Apple Opens New Store in New York

Apple Inc. (AAPL) will open its newest retail store with an 8,500 square feet retail space in New York tomorrow. The store will help Apple deliver more Macs, iPods and iPhones, taking advantage of the coming holiday

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The video clips below provide a handy summary of the reports expected on the economic, financial and corporate front around the globe during the week ahead.

US: Retail results, economy in focus Retailers including Home Depot and Target will report results and key economic data will include retail sales and industrial output. Meanwhile, nine speakers from the Federal Reserve will offer their views on the economy.

Europe: Air France-KLM report Airbus owner EADS reports quarterly results along with airline Air France-KLM. In the UK luxury-goods group Burberry will provide an update.

Asia: Obama tour, data in focus U.S. President Barack Obama will tour the region, making stops in Japan and China to start

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Apple Inc. (AAPL) will open its newest retail store with an 8,500 square feet retail space in New York tomorrow. The store will help Apple deliver more Macs, iPods and iPhones, taking advantage of the coming holiday season. The new store is the fourth in Manhattan and fifteenth in New York.   To ensure a high-quality buying experience for its products, in which service and education are emphasized, the company has expanded and improved its distribution capabilities by opening its own retail stores in the U.S. and internationally.   The company operates a network of 280 retail stores in 10 countries across the world, including the U.S., U.K., Italy, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, Switzerland, Germany and France to drive the demand for its other products. Further, Apple is soon to open two new stores in Shanghai as well as London and Paris. The company further plans to ...

The paragraphs below are excerpts from Richard Russell’s latest Dow Theory Letters, arguing the case for gold bullion.

“Today I ask myself, where would I rather have my subscribers be - loaded up in the Dow Jones Industrial Average or loaded up with gold?. And in all honesty, I believe they are better off in gold than in the stock market with DIA.

“There are a number of items favoring higher gold now.

(1) Interest rates are at zero, which means the ‘opportunity cost’ of owning gold now is highly favorable. You sacrifice no yield in owning gold vs. Treasury bills. T-bills pay you nothing, so you might as well have your money in gold.

(2) The Bernanke Fed will evidently stop at nothing in its all-out attempt to ‘jump start’ the wobbly US economy. This means spending and building debt at a never-seen-before rate. This will

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A Green Energy Investing Guideline

by Louise Harris, Investment U Research

Typically, when investors think about making money from climate change, they think about buying shares of companies that specialize in biofuels or alternative or green energy.

But those aren’t the only ways to profit from the green movement.

Deutsche Bank Group (NYSE: DB) recently conducted in-depth research, analyzing climate change and the cost of combating it. And a few very interesting conclusions came from it…

More capital is required to mobilize climate change industries and more action by government is required to attract capital. When governments offer tax incentives and create integrated plans to combat climate change, investors are attracted. Carbon markets could offer long-term solutions to investors trying to find a niche in the climate change debate.

And there are countries out there doing just that.

The Greenest Countries

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The dollar has clearly been under pressure this year. Most of the graphs of it that you have seen probably look like the first graph below, which shows what the dollar has done against two indexes since the start of the year. The blue line is how the greenback has fared against the major currencies like the Euro and the Yen, and the red line includes those, but also looks at how it has fared against a much broader collection of currencies. Since March 9th, the day the market hit bottom -- and the dollar hit its high for the year -- it is down 14.4% against the major currencies and down 11.5% against the broad basket of currencies. This has a number of implications. For starters, anyone from outside the country has seen nice gains if they invested in the U.S. market, but not nearly as ...