In this portion of the economic cycle, we typically see all sorts of causes and reasons for fault. This time, its no different...br /br /We've seen "the fall of the U.S." theories...br /h1 style="font-style: italic;"span style="font-size:78%;"a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html"As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S./a/span/h1Its an interesting theory, but pretty light on the substance. This guy fails to take into consideration the actual climate in America.br /br /And of course "the death of free-market capitalism" calls...br /br /a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/12/laissezfaire_capitalism_should.html"span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"Laissez-Faire Capitalism Should Be as Dead as Soviet Communism/span/abr /br /Again, awfully light on substance. Its so easily to rip on free-market capitalism during recessions, but people often forget about the wealth created by capitalism which probably is the reason the writer had a job to begin with. Some like to have it both ways. Its easy to tear down ...

a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/SUNq1diWT3I/AAAAAAAAAmk/bSjmELRaRnY/s1600-h/Cigarette.jpg"img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 231px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_T9VXVyuEITg/SUNq1diWT3I/AAAAAAAAAmk/bSjmELRaRnY/s320/Cigarette.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5279180654902660978" //abr /Now that Barrack Obama is the president-elect, the United Stated will have the first smoking president in many years. Although he has made plans to quit smoking, he admits that he still hasn't yet stopped entirely. Will this have an effect on the consumption of cigarettes and tobacco? If you think so, and you have no objection to investing in cigarette stocks, you may want to consider the tobacco companies, especially because of their extremely high yields.br /br /Vector Group Ltd. (VGR) is a Florida based company that has numerous brands of cigarettes including Liggett, Grand Prix, Eve, Pyramid, USA and nicotine-free Quest. The stock has a PE of 15 a PEG of 1.25, and pays a yield of 11.7%.br /br /Reynolds American Inc. (RAI) makes and markets cigarettes and other ...

strongMonday:br //strongEconomic NAbr /Earnings H amp; R Block (HRB), Nat Semi (NSM), Pep Boys (PBY)br /br /strongTuesday:/strongbr /Economic Pending Home Sales (-2.3%)br /Earnings Analogic (ALOG), AutoZone (AZO), Kroger (KR), Toro (TTC), ADC Telecom (ADCT), Cooper (COO), Oxford (OXM), Pall (PLL), SAIC (SAI)br /br /strongWednesday:/strongbr /Economic Weekly Crude, Treasury Budget (-$193B)br /Earnings Korn/Ferry (KFY), CKE Restaurants (CKR), Greif (GEF), NCI Bldg (NCS)br /br /strongThursday:br //strongEconomic Weekly Claims, Import / Export, Trade Balance (-$54B)br /Earnings Ciena (CIEN), Costco (COST), Luluemon (LULU), Esterline (ESL), Martek (MATK), Teekay (TK)br /br /strongFriday:/strongbr /Economic PPI amp; Core (-1.8%, 0.2%), Retail Sales (-1.4%, -1.7%), Biz’ Invs (-0.1%), Michigan (58) Earnings NAdiv class="blogger-post-footer"http://stockweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml/div pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/SQk3ONGLysXPUUj8p5cpWPND6oI/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/SQk3ONGLysXPUUj8p5cpWPND6oI/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Stockweb?a=IveUgyz9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/Stockweb?d=41" border="0"/img/a /div

Stock markets in Asia and Europe opened sharply lower after Lehman Brothers (LEH) announces bankruptcy. Another news is about Merrill Lynch (MER) which was surprisingly bought by Bank of America (BAC). From Big five financial firms only Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) remain. These two will release earnings results this week.Monday:Economic Empire (1.4) CU & IP (79.6%, -0.3%)Earnings Titan Machinery (TITN), Discover (DFS), Pall (PLL)Tuesday:Economic CPI & Core (0.2%, 0.0%), FOMC StatementEarnings Best Buy (BBY), CBRL (CBRL), Goldman (GS), Kroger (KR), AAR (AIR), Adobe (ADBE), Darden (DRI)Wednesday:Economic Weekly Crude, Bldg P’s & Starts (925K, 950K)Earnings General Mills (GIS), Morgan Stanley (MS), CKE (CKR), Dress Barn (DBRN)Thursday:Economic Weekly Claims, Leading Indicators (-0.2%), Philly Fed (-10.0)Earnings Carnival (CCL), ConAgra (CAG), FedEx (FDX), Cintas (CTAS), Oracle (ORCL), Palm (PALM)http://stockweb.blogspot.com/atom.xml

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Company Overview Reynolds American, Inc. was created in 2004 by the merger of R.J.Reynolds Tobacco Holdings and British American Tobacco PLC, and is now the parent company of the operating companies listed below with their specialties. As a holding company, Reynolds American focuses on pleasing the stockholder, while the operating companies focus on pleasing their customers. To please stockholders, the management team at Reynolds American focuses on two things: increasing stock price and increasing dividends. The operating companies are as follows:

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company – U.S. market mostly. Sells 1 of every 3 cigarettes sold in the US. Brands include: Camel, Kool, Pall Mall, Winston, Salem, Doral, Misty, Capri, Lucky Strike, Barclay, Carlton, More, Now, Tareyton, Vantage, Viceroy. Conwood, Company, LLC specializes in smokeless tobacco products. Lane Limited is also part of Conwood. Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company sells a line of additive free

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