U.S. stocks wobbled Tuesday and ended the day mixed even as automakers reported improved auto sales and Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway said it would buy Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.  Traders were reluctant to place big bets as they awaited the outcome of a two-day FOMC meeting which got underway Tuesday and Friday's monthly jobs report.  Although expectations are the Fed would keep interest rates in the 0-0.25% range, Wall Street has been speculating if there would be a change of tone in the policy statement. 

On Tuesday, the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average closed down 17.53 points, or 0.18%, to 9,771.91.  The broad Standard & Poor's 500-stock index added 2.53 points, or 0.24%, to 1,045.41 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq advanced 8.12 points, or 0.40%, to 2,057.32.  On the NYSE, volume slowed to 1.38 billion shares.  

The news of a sale of 200 tons of gold to India sent

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Moody’s senior analyst Ken Chan put Chartered Semiconductor’s (CHRT) speculative-grade Ba2 rating under review for a possible downgrade after Abu Dhabi’s nationalized investment firm, ATIC, proposed to buy the Singapore-based company for $1.8 billion.

The acquisition would transfer the majority holding from Singapore investment agency, Temasek (Moody’s rating Aaa) to ATIC (Abu Dhabi’s sovereign rating Aa2).

Analysts differed on how the acquisition would affect Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which had earlier united with ATIC to form Globalfoundries. Although Chartered and Globalfoundries will continue to operate as separate entities, increased scale of operations could result in cost synergies. Since AMD includes Globalfoundries in its consolidated results, the deal could shorten its road to profitability.

The deal would also open up Globalfoundries to several big customers, such as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Broadcom Corp. (BRCM), Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) and Texas Instruments (TXN). Its end market

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div style="text-align: justify;"Citigroup is upgrading span style="font-weight: bold;"Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE:AMD/span) to Buy from Hold and raising price target to $5.50 (prev. $4.25).br /br /Firm notes they are upgrading AMD, given what they believe is a favorable risk/reward profile. They are raising our price target based on a sum of the parts of Global Foundries ($0.45) and Product Co ($5.08). Firm' estimates are tweaked given their more rigorous model for Global Foundries.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Deep Discount to the Sector — /span3Q09 QTD, AMD shares are down 4.4%, underperforming the broader chip industry (SOXX up 14.5%, Samp;P up 11.6%). Citi recognizes that AMD’s competitive position is poor and its net debt position classifies the company as “low quality.” However, now trading at just 1.25x EV/sales, a 45% discount to the group (2.3x), they see risk/reward as favorable.br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Elements of Stabilization Evident/span — 3 fundamental factors are contemplated ...

FLO TV Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM), together with its partner Rentrak Corp. (RENT) recently decided to launch the industry’s first comprehensive audience measurement and reporting system. This innovative technique will provide details of advertising sales on FLO TV and an in-depth study of its viewership pattern. Rentrak is a multi-screen media measurement and research company.

Qualcomm continues to lead mobile video market with the deployment of MediaFLO networks (that offers FLO TV services). In June, the mobile TV industry received a boost when the US government decided to switch to digital TV from analog transmission.

The immediate beneficiary of this was Qualcomm’s FLO TV network, which has already spent $500 million to buy spectrum that has been released. The company will now have the opportunity to broadcast its transmission in 100 major US markets serving more than 250 million potential customers. According

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Semiconductor Industry Trying to Survive

Tony Daltorio, The Investment U Research Team

The financial downturn and global recession has hit the semiconductor industry hard.

Orders for microchips were almost non-existent at the end of 2008 as computers and mobile phones languished unsold on retailers’ shelves.

According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, global semiconductor sales fell 2.8 percent last year and are expected to fall a further 21.5 percent to $195.6 billion this year.

Despite the positive reaction in the stock market to the latest sales figures from Intel (INTC),the world’s biggest chipmaker, the numbers were mixed at best. Intel did enjoy a sales revival driven by consumers buying cheaper, smaller netbooks, but revenues fell in Europe and sales in the key business customer area were weak.

Let’s take a closer look at the semiconductor industry for profit opportunities.

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DrStockPick.com Stock Report!

Thursday July 30, 2009

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Digital Angel (NASDAQ:DIGA), an advanced technology company in the field of animal identification and emergency identification solutions, announced today that it plans to issue its second quarter 2009 financial results for the period ended June 30, 2009, on Thursday, August 6, 2009, at approximately 8:00 a.m. ET. The Company will hold a conference call to discuss the results at 10:00 a.m. ET that same day. Interested participants should call (866) 393-5807 within the United States and Canada, or (706) 679-2276 internationally. Please use passcode 22213711.

Intermec (NYSE:IN) today announced that the CN50 rugged mobile computer, equipped with Qualcomm technology, is now shipping to customers worldwide.

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Novatel Wireless Inc. (NVTL), a leading provider of wireless data access cards and embedded solutions, has launched its MiFi Web server Common Gateway Interface (CGI) for the MiFi Developer Program. MiFi line of products, the industry’s first Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, is getting increasing market traction.

MiFi is an ultra-portable wireless device, creating an environment of high-speed internet connectivity that can be easily shared by multiple users using up to five Wi-Fi devices. Novatel has developed MiFi for both EV-DO and HSPA standards.   The release of this interface will enable software developers to use MiFi’s open CGI to access the on-board processing capabilities of this intelligent mobile hotspot. Novatel has decided to develop an open platform ecosystem based on MiFi technology for applications and services delivery.

The company is working with Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) to integrate its Nonstop Laptop Guardian platform on the HSPA version of MiFi. Novatel is also commercializing

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Yesterday, chipmaker, Broadcom Corporation (BRCM) reported revenues of $1.040 billion, down 13.4% year over year but up 21.9% sequentially and against consensus estimate of $984 million. Consolidated gross margin declined to 50.1% from 53.8% in the year-ago quarter, driven by a decrease in product gross margin, but improved from 47.7% in the previous quarter. Product gross margin slumped to 46.1% from 52.3% in the year-ago quarter. Net income dwindled to $13.4 million from $134.8 million a year ago. GAAP EPS came in at $0.03, significantly short of the consensus estimate of $0.24. The net income for the reported quarter includes a $65.3 million gain on settlement of patent agreement with QUALCOMM (QCOM) and $67.3 million in related licensing revenue. The company also contributed $50 million to its foundation. BRCM announced a multi-year patent agreement and a settlement of legal disputes with ...

For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 20, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Intel Corp (INTC), ARM Holdings (ARMH), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Texas Instruments (TXN).

Get the most recent insight from Zacks Equity Research with the free Profit from the Pros newsletter: http://at.zacks.com/?id=5513

Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:

How Mobile is Intel?

Just as Intel Corp (INTC) has a dominant position in the microprocessor market for computers, ARM Holdings (ARMH) has the most widely used technology in cell phones and other mobile devices. Intel’s desire to go beyond its home ground may be

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL – July 20, 2009 – Zacks.com announces the latest Industry Outlook. Today’s outlook from Zacks Equity Research analyst David Weissman discusses the Telecom sector. Highlighted stocks include: Qualcomm (QCOM) and China Mobile (CHL).

Here is the latest on the Telecom sector:

In our view, companies showing significant net-cash positions become attractive in volatile markets. It is important to consider balance sheet conditions that may limit the vulnerability of telecom companies in weak economies. This is perhaps at least as important as metrics that track earnings growth, but often do not consider overall market declines.

With the S&P 500 P/E between 10 and 12 times earnings, valuation targets that were provided by analysts based on earnings growth parameters have not been effective in guiding investment recommendations during market tailspins.

This leads us to recommend selected net cash positive companies able to

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