After almost a year of initiating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to rescue the nation’s financial industry, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday that it would auction off stock warrants it acquired from three big banks that received a significant portion of taxpayers’ money and have fully repaid the same. The government is taking this step to free the lenders from the federal bailout program.  The three banks, whose warrants will be sold via auctions over the next month, are JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Capital One Financial (COF) and TCF Financial Corporation (TCB). These three banks, that received a total of $28.9 billion from the TARP, have fully repurchased Treasury's preferred stock investment. The current move to sell their warrants will completely free these banks from government intervention.  The government still holds warrants of 261 banks, out of which only 15 ...

• TJX (NYSE:TJX) posted a larger-than-anticipated profit as demand for discounted consumer products continued. The firm said it sees fourth-quarter earnings of 65 cents to 71 cents a share from continuing operations

• Saks (NYSE:SKS) reported a surprise quarterly profit

• Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) shares rose 3.0%, and led the gainers on the DJIA, after Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and UBS (NYSE:UBS) recommended the shares.  Morgan Stanley's analyst raised the price target on the stock due to encouraging demand for Windows 7 and upbeat expectations for holiday season demand.  UBS' analyst placed a $34 price target on the shares

• Barclays Capital (NYSE:BCS) raised ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) to "overweight"

• Autodesk (NASDAQ:ADSK) offered a slightly downside fourth-quarter guidance of 24 cents a share ex-items

• Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) said it sees fourth-quarter earnings of 14 cents to 15 cents a share, versus Street estimates of 15 cents a share

• BMO Capital downgraded Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) to "market perform"

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

• OUPblog: Oxford Word of the Year 2009: Unfriend, November 16, 2009. Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary prepares for the holidays by making its biggest announcement of the year.  This announcement is usually applauded by some and derided by others and the ongoing conversation it sparks is always a lot of fun, so I encourage you to let us know what you think in the comments.

Without further ado, the 2009 Word of the Year is: “unfriend”. “Unfriend” - verb - to remove someone as a “friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook.

• Martin Wolf (Financial Times): Grim truths Obama should have told Hu, November 17, 2009. Obama

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Shuaiyi International New Resources Development Inc. is a leading nutraceutical company focusing on the development of engineered “Cordyceps Militaris” products in China. The company has about a 19% share for such products in China, with a distribution network in more than ten Chinaese provinces.

The company’s products are based on a fungus that is typically found in north-eastern mountainous China. Shuaiyi specializes in developing, processing, marketing and distributing a variety of agricultural and nutraceutical products consisting of dry Cordyceps Militaris, organic and speciality food and beverage products.

Shuaiyi International announced today the appointment of Mr. Daniel K. Lee as its new chief financial officer to replace Mr. Xianfeng Han. The company has entered into a 3.5-year employment agreement with Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee has extensive financial and investment experience with US financial institutions including Morgan Stanley, Roth Capital Partners and Punk, Ziegel & Knoell.

Mr. Lee brings to the table strong

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Companies featured in this edition of the newsletter: ACTC, CVM, CHIP, ENZ, HYTM, IWEB, ONEZ, PHC, SIHI, SRCO

Markets continued their strong performance this week in the absence of any major market driving earnings or economic reports, as the broad based buying that characterized the previous week continued and led to gains in all of the major indices. All told, the Dow added 2.5% on the week, gaining 247 points to close at 10,270, up 17.0% on the year. The Nasdaq posted a 2.6% gain on the week, closing at 2,167 to extend its yearly gains to 37.5%, while the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 gained 2.3% and 1.0% respectively, bringing their yearly gains to 21.1% and 17.4%.

Equity markets carried the momentum from the previous week’s session, as the thin economic calendar and lack of significant earnings reports provided little incentive for investors to slow their buying activities.

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• Boeing's (NYSE:BA) new head of its commercial aircraft division, Jim Albaugh, said the long-awaited Dreamliner test will happen by yearend

• Citigroup (NYSE:C) plans to sell Bellsystem 24, a Japanese telemarketing company, to Bain Capital for $1 billion, bringing to $10.8 billion the dollar amount Citi has raised from sales of Japanese assets

• Hedge fund Paulson & Co. reported in a September 30 filing Citigroup (NYSE:C) holdings of 300 million shares, valued at $1.45 billion

• Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) raised its bid for Tandberg ASA to $3.4 billion, or about an 11% increase, and extended its offer to December 1

• According to a Bloomberg report, Mitsubishi UFJ has hired JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to manage an $11 billion secondary offering, Japan's largest ever. The company plans to sell about 2.5 billion common shares

• Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) said it plans to spin off its 83% stake in Mead Johnson Nutrition

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The U.S. Treasury's pay czar, who oversees compensation for the highest-paid employees at the firms that received U.S. taxpayer assistance, said on Thursday that he is concerned that pay cuts could obstruct the ability of these firms to retain and attract top talent. However, the pay czar would be open to requests to hire new executives at competitive industry rates. The pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, decides compensation packages for the highest-paid employees at the seven firms that have received substantial support from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The pay restrictions were imposed on these firms to enable them to repay government money by controlling excessive pay. The seven firms, whose top 25 earners received an average 50% lower pay last month by the order of the pay czar, are American International Group (AIG), Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), Chrysler Financial, Chrysler Group ...

Morgan Stanley (MS) is pursuing a buyer to sell its 34% stake that it holds in investment bank China International Capital Corporation (CICC). Morgan Stanley’s role in CICC has been reduced to that of a passive investor, prompting the case for disinvestment. Morgan Stanley received approval from Chinese regulators early last year to sell its stake in CICC. However, it then did not opt for the disinvestment as the bids were very low at that time. As the markets have now bounced back, the company now wants to revisit the deal. Potential suitors for the divestiture in China's largest investment bank could be private equity firms, namely Bain Capital and General Atlantic. The first rounds for the bids are expected on Tuesday. The divestiture is expected to realize over $1.2 billion for Morgan Stanley. On Oct. 21, Morgan Stanley reported third-quarter 2009 income of $498 ...

Dr Stock Pick HOT News & Alerts!

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FREE Daily Stock Alerts From DrStockPick.com

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Monday November 9, 2009

DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

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HORIZON HEALTH INTERNATIONAL CORP. (PINK SHEETS:HZHI) announced the successful launch of their e-commerce website www.medichair-calgary.com. In May of 2009 Samson Industries, the Company’s Canadian Subsidiary, entered into a Licensing Agreement with MEDIchair Calgary, Canada. Under the terms of the licensing agreement, MEDIchair Calgary will pay to Horizon’s wholly owned subsidiary, a monthly license fee of $250 plus 50% of the profit realized from on-line sales generated by MEDIchair through the website which is owned and operated by Samson Industries.

The Agreement allows MEDIchair-Calgary (with estimated annual sales of $

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Today we are featuring top-performing “Real Estate" equity mutual funds, which primarily invest in equity securities of real estate companies.

Investors can find such funds by checking out the entire list of the Zacks #1 Rank Real Estate Equity Funds.

3 Excellent Examples

Forward Select Income A (KIFAX) was incepted in March 2001. The investment seeks high current income and potential for modest long-term growth of capital.

The fund invests primarily in securities of companies in the real estate industry, such as real estate investment trusts, master limited partnerships and other real estate firms. The fund invests at least 80% of its net assets in income-producing securities.

Shareholders have to make a minimum initial investment of $2,000 to enter this Zacks#1 Rank (“Strong Buy") fund. It has an expense ratio of 1.77%.

Joel S. Beam has been Lead Manager of the fund since March 2001. Prior to joining Kensington, Beam was with Liquidity Financial

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