U.S. stocks ended the day mixed as concerns grew that a six-month old rally has gone ahead of any economic recovery.  A drop in crude prices on global demand concerns sent energy shares lower.  Also, investors appeared jittery ahead of the two-day policy meet and Friday's key post of August durable goods, and refrained from adding to their holdings.  Defensive areas like healthcare rose.  Technology shares also found some favor with investors after Dell announced plans to acquire Perot Systems in a $3.9 billion deal.

This morning’s stock futures indicate Wall Street is headed for a higher opening, helped by a rally in global stocks.  Ahead of the market’s open, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 48, or 0.5%, to 9,766.  Standard & Poor's 500 index futures were up 6.20, or 0.6%, to 1,066.60, while Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 10.75, or 0.6%, to 1,738.50.  Ahead of the FOMC

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* Australian billionaire Packer denied reports he is considering acquiring a stake in the Las Vegas City Center project currently jointly owned by MGM (NYSE:MGM) and Dubai World. MGM (NYSE:MGM) has hired Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to advise on selling various casinos to generate needed cash

* Chairman and CEO Adelson reported the purchase of 4.7 million additional shares of Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS), bringing his total purchases over the past week to almost 12.6 million shares

* Reports said talks between IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ:JAVA) broke down over the weekend on disagreement over terms of a potential deal, including the $9.40, or about $6 billion price Sun considered too low

* HSBC Holdings (NYSE:HBC) shares jumped in Monday's trade on the successful response to its $18.9 billion rights offering

* GM's (NYSE:GM) Saab unit is reportedly in talks with 20 possible buyers, with a deal expected by June. The unit is seeking

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As Safe As Gold Eric Sprott & Sasha Solunac

What are phrases that connote safety? Two that come to mind are: “Like money in the bank” or “As safe as houses”. Given events of the past year, these two phrases no longer seem to hit the mark, do they? These days, the one word that signifies safety is “gold”, being far safer than both cash and houses. It therefore stands to reason that a more accurate phraseology would be “Like gold in the safe!” or “As safe as gold!” Yes, the barbarous relic is back… and with a vengeance.

As our readers may have already surmised, we like gold around here, and evidence suggests the world is beginning to like it more and more

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Misery Index for the Week Ended January 23, 2009

January 23, 2009 ndash; The DJIA lost 202 points this last week, or 2.4%, as the drip of negative economic data and downbeat corporate earnings reports continued. All things being equal, it could have been worse, as the 8,000 level was breached each trading session of the shortened week. Here is this weekrsquo;s past Misery Index:nbsp;nbsp;

middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Profit warnings ndash; BASF, ECB, Varian, Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Belden, AZZ, Inc., TD Ameritrade, Ultralife Batteries, Parker Hannifin, United Rentals, Cash America, Air Products, WSP Holdings, Wonder Auto, Electro, Lockheed Martin, Sony, Northrop Grumman, Molina Healthcare, Schlumberger, nbsp;Genuine Parts, MEMC, Interline Brands.nbsp;nbsp;

middot;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Job Cuts ndash; Time Warner (almost 800 jobs), Rio Tinto (1,100 jobs worldwide), Bose (1,000 jobs or 10% of staff),nbsp; Rohm amp; Hahs (900 jobs), Tandy Brands (about 17% of workforce),nbsp; Burberry (more than 500 jobs), BHP Billiton (6,000 jobs), Eaton (5,200 …

In the currency market, the dollar inched higher against the euro. Late Wednesday, the euro was trading at $1.3176 vs. $1.3187 on Tuesday.

The drumbeat of economic news was grim indeed yesterday, beginning with an estimate from the Commerce Department that retail sales plunged 2.7% in December, much worse than the 1.5% decline economists were projecting. Excluding autos, retail sales recorded their biggest drop since record-keeping began in the early 1990s, falling 3.1%.

Sales have now fallen for six months in a row — the longest decline on record — with the declines accelerating in the final quarter of the year. Sales data were revised lower for both October and November, to declines of 3.4% and 2.1%, respectively.

“Holiday sales posted the biggest decline on record,” wrote Anika Khan, an economist for Wachovia. But worse, “Sales have been primarily driven by extensive discounting which is hurting retail profit margins.”

The Fed’s Beige Book

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From "Trade-Finance Pinch Hurts the Healthy," WSJ, 12/22/08:

The global financial crisis is drying up the financing that firms depend on for trade. That's making the global recession nastier and deeper than it otherwise would be.

As with all kinds of credit these days, financial institutions are making less trade finance available and charging more for it. But the squeeze in trade stands out because it pinches otherwise healthy companies that should be driving a recovery in global commerce. Already, the World Bank predicts trade will contract next year for the first time since 1982.

The Deteriorating Trade Outlook

Here's the IMF's recent forecasts for exports -- from October and then November -- for world trade, disaggregated into advanced and developing country groupings.

Figure 1: Real goods and services exports by country group. Source: IMF, World Economic Outlook Oct. 2008; Nov. 6 WEO update.

These developments in trade financing suggest that

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Move by Deutsche Bank follows similar halting of activities by ProShares and Rydex in the U.S.

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Deutsche Bank's ETF designed to short bank stocks has stopped taking short positions on both the London Stock Exchange and Borsa Italia, and is planning to implement a similar policy with the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Furthermore, the bank short ETF has stopped accepting new investments, and redemptions will be met with a bid price by the fund's provider, Deutsche Bank. While the X-Trackers family of ETFs is available on five European exchanges in all, the bank short ETF is only available on the London, Italian and Frankfurt exchanges.

The DJ STOXX 600 Banks Short X-Trackers ETF (LSE: XS7S) has stopped shorting due to the ban on short selling implemented by the Financial Services Authority, which acted

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Analysts are trumpeting the recent drop in oil prices as a step toward normalcy. But is this celebration premature? Or perhaps even misplaced? After all, we all know that over the long haul, energy prices are headed in only one direction - higher. Crude oil plunged 8% to close at $106.23 a barrel last week - reaching its lowest level in five months - as the U.S. dollar strengthened to its highest point against the European euro so far this year. Crude oil prices actually declined for six straight days - the longest stretch since they did so from April 30, 2007 to May 7, 2007. U.S. fuel demand dropped 3.5% during the past four weeks. And unemployment spiked much more than economists had predicted. Even so, oil prices are still 41% higher than they were a year ago. "Demand destruction and the strength of ...

Just a day removed from new reports speculating about a Korean Development Bank (KDB) buyout or partial buyout of troubled U.S. investment firm Lehman Brothers (LEH), questions about whether or not a deal is likely to happen generated more questions about Lehman's speculative lifeline.  Without private banks joining in, it seems unlikely KDB will make a move to obtain Lehman on its own.

A Reuters report this morning also cited interest from European bank HSBC Holdings in obtaining all or part of Lehman Brothers, but no absolutes were even close to being nailed down, and HSBC seems closer to making investments in emerging markets, instead.

Still, shares of LEH have remained rather steady around the $16 per share mark, up from the trough last month of trading below $15 per share.  The news is not particularly strong either up or down to this point, though we have mentioned several times recently

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In his “master trading portfolio” Bernin Schaeffer recommends Wells Fargo and HSBC in his Schaeffer Research.

“HSBC Holdings, the banking and financial services company, has gained nearly 19% since July 15.

“The stock’s Schaeffer’s put/call open interest ratio is 2.54, a reading that is higher than 85% of those taken during the past year.

“In addition, more than 10 puts have been purchased (to open) for every call purchased (to open) for HBC on the International Securities Exchange during the past 10 days.

“An unwinding of this pessimism could draive the shares higher. Analyst upgrades are a possibility for HBC, as 4 of 5 analysts who cover the stock rate it a ‘hold’ or worse.

“Since hitting a low on July 15, Wells Fargo shares have gained more than 45%. Despite the recent turnaround, option speculators remain pessimistic. The stock’s Shaeffer’s put/call open interest ratio is 2.99, the highest reading taken during the

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