Offshore account holders wait for the knife to fall, says Raife Neuman, tax planner for Bonner & Partners Family Office. The question is: How sharp it will be?

As I’ve written before, the Obama administration has given offshore tax avoiders a chance to come clean; but for some, the door is closing quickly. At issue is the IRS crackdown on individuals holding US securities in offshore accounts who don’t pay taxes on their earnings.

It was a nice little gig until the IRS took advantage of the dire economic situation and started shaking down Swiss bank UBS. The IRS is demanding that UBS turn over the names of US citizens with fabled Swiss bank accounts.

While waving its big stick at UBS, the IRS gave individuals the opportunity to come forth with their accounts themselves – accompanied by a penalty, of course. The implied threat is that if you don’t

Stocks defied negative news from North Korea as the rogue country tested its nuclear and missle strike capabilities. Consumer confidence jumped big fueling institutional buying pushing stocks even higher and the buying continued right up into the close. Volume was up across the board compared to Friday’s trade, but it was below the 50dma. Not a terrible sign, but its more showing institutions are still being a bit shy. Rapping up the day, seeing the indexes close out near the highs on volume was a positive step in the right direction.

Finally, we see the IBD indexes leading this market. The trend will need to continue, but today was a step in the right direction. It is nice to see quality growth stocks lead for once and not the junk off the bottom. Remember, in past uptrends which followed severe bear markets …

top longs/(shorts) w/ TOTAL returns since 1st purchase making me money TODAY: ASCA 48% SOLR 40% INOD 40% KONG 28% ARST 25% (MOS 46% CHTT 15%)

Today was owned by the banking sector as the “Bank Stress Tests” were released today. By in large this stress was viewed vastly different from all sides of the aisle. Regardless of anyone’s opinion, the market’s opinion was positive as banks roared higher pushing the NYSE composite Index and S&P500 higher. Lagging behind was the NASDAQ composite index and the IBD indexes. It shouldn’t be a major surprise seeing the banks leading for one day as the stress tests showed most banks can withstand further downside, but we’ll need to see leadership from the IBD indexes. Once again, we did see major support for the NASDAQ and other indexes showing there is a bullish tint …

Hong-Kong-based China Precision Steel (Nasdaq: CPSL) is a niche precision steel processing company engaged in the production and sale of high precision cold-rolled steel products and other specialty services. The company today announced its fiscal 2009 first-quarter results for the period ended September 30, 2008, noting that despite a tight economic environment the company is securing business with competitive pricing.

Revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 were $25.4 million, down 6.8 percent from $27.2 million for the same quarter of 2008. The company attributes the slide to a decline in high-carbon, cold-rolled coils and reduced orders from auto components customers.

“Despite the global economic slowdown which resulted in reduced demand from manufacturers for auto components, we remain optimistic about our market position,” Dr. Wo Hing Li, China Precision Steel’s chairman and CEO stated in the press release. “We believe that our competitive pricing and service is attracting manufacturers