Stocks are higher after AIG agreed to sell its Asian division and as Manufacturing growth slowed in February

Stocks are higher after AIG announced its biggest asset sale since being rescued by the government. A report of continued growth in manufacturing also lifted the market.

The Institute for Supply Management says Monday that its manufacturing index fell to 56.5 in February from 58.4 in January. The reading is below the 58 economists predicted. But the report finds that employment in manufacturing is improving.

Stocks rose after AIG agreed to sell its Asian life insurance business to Britain’s Prudential PLC for $35.5 billion. The deal is a sign of confidence in the economy.

In early morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 48.30, or 0.5 percent, to 10,373.56. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 6.00, or 0.5 percent, at 1,110.49, while the Nasdaq composite index is up 14.67, or 0.7 percent, at 2,252.93.

Yesterday’s ...

$EMR (big volume), $LOPE (finally breaks $20 resistance), $HOLX (resistance), $DHI (stop: $11.99), $IVAN, $SCSS (cup-and-handle stop: $6.89), $SPF (cup-and-handle stop: $3.79); 12 stocks qualified for breakout.img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Delicious/zignalscharts/~4/mpBRMocrXBo" height="1" width="1"/

Owen Matthews has a great essay on Russian corruption and the murder of Sergei Magnitsky published in the The Spectator.  He makes some pretty powerful observations, bringing into focus just how tenuous the security is even for a so-called Kremlin business insider - with no rule of law, anybody can go down.

The nature of Russian governance has moved on somewhat since the 16th century. But one thing has remained the same: post-Soviet Russia is a profoundly feudal society. I don't mean that as a generalised insult denoting ignorance and backwardness. I mean really feudal, in its most literal sense. Feudalism is the exchange of service for protection. In the absence of functional legal or law enforcement systems, people's only real protection lies in a network of personal and professional relationships with powerful individuals. And so it is in Russia today -- for every member of society with

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Happy Saturday fellow Masters.  You may have noticed we've been using charts and stats from a site called Finviz.com lately. I had a chance to talk with Ivan Klimo, Finviz Product Manager and bounced a few questions off him.  Check out our Q&A session with www.finviz.com. 1. First off, great site and one-stop shopping for someone checking out securities before they decide to buy and sell, what was the inspiration for the site? The site development started due to our internal needs for online stock screener that would provide rich information output and optimal navigation. After finishing the screener we got plenty of other ideas on how to improve the analytical processes used by stock traders on daily basis and decided to implement them into a market research ...