Initial Claims for the week ending Jan. 3rd fell 24,000 to 467,000, from 491,000 last week, and  from a  26-year high of 586,000 the week before.  This decrease came at a -13.5% surprise from the 540,000 estimate.  Initial claims have fallen the last two weeks, which may have been a result of offices closed for holidays allowing less opportunity for initial unemployment claims filings were made.  Also, the figures indicate that those filing haven't regained employment as the number of persons continuing to receive unemployment benefits rose to 4,611,000, the highest since November of 1982 (when size of labor force was smaller), and was only 2,690,000 in the prior year.  In the past week, ending December 27th, initial claims decreased as a result of significantly reduced filings in Texas, California, Florida, and Virginia cited from fewer layoffs in construction, trade, services, automobile, and manufacturing industries.  In Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas,

...

Today, Zhone Technologies, Inc. announced that its MALC multi-service access platform (MSAP) has been selected by Birch Communications to boost network performance and cut ownership costs. Birch Communications, one of the largest local exchange carriers in the 31-state Southeast, Southwest and Midwest regions, anticipates offering all of its access offerings, including EFM, ADSL2+, T1 and voice over Internet Protocol, via one integrated platform.

“There is a race to help carriers realize the inherent efficiency gains by migrating to IP networks and MSAP provisioning,” stated Steven Glapa, Zhone’s VP of product management and marketing. “The Birch network strategy is a model for fast-growth service providers adapting to escalating demands for ultra high efficiency IP networks. By selecting Zhone’s MSAP, Birch can provision higher profit, higher performance access services while cutting ownership costs by up to 50 percent.”

Tom Stachowiak, VP of Engineering for Birch Communications, commented, “We selected Zhone because it is recognized

...

Life Partners Holdings, Inc. (...

San Antonio, Texas-based Valero Energy Corporation (VLO) is the largest independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products in the U.S., with 3.1 million barrels per day in refining capacity in its 16 refineries located throughout the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean.Our continued favorable view for Valero shares reflects the company's strong financial health, balanced refining portfolio and leverage to the still-wide crude quality spreads. We believe that these attributes position Valero to navigate the current cyclical downturn much better than many of its independent refining peers.Shares of independent refiners, Valero included, have been under pressure since the second half of last year due to continued margins pressures. While we are cognizant of these headwinds, we cannot close our eyes to the underlying strength of the U.S. refining scene. We believe that the upside potential far outweighs the downside risks from current levels....

Safeway Inc. (SWY) is a food and drug retailer in North America. The company's 1,738 stores are located principally in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, the Chicago metropolitan area and the Mid-Atlantic region, as well as British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba/Saskatchewan.We maintain our Buy rating and our six-month target price of $28, or about 12x our 2009 EPS estimate. On October 7, Safeway reported in-line results for the third quarter. Management also reiterated its full-year EPS guidance of $2.25-$2.35 and free cash flow of $500-$700 million.While Safeway shares are up about 34% from their November lows, the shares are still down about 27% in the last year. Safeway shares sold off because of risks associated with the difficult macro environment that has consumers trading down to cheaper alternatives as well as the credit crisis that has impacted the entire stock market....

Igor Panarin, a Russian professor and dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats, is a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=13articleid=20081229_298_0_MOSCOW706119" target="_blank"predicting the economic and moral collapse of the United States in 2010/a. This former KGB agent says that by mid 2010, the US will be in a civil war causing the country to break into six parts. He said that California will become the California Republic, and be under Chinese rule, and Texas will be part of Mexico.div class="blogger-post-footer"div class='adsense' style='text-align:center; padding: 0px 3px 0.5em 3px;' script type="text/javascript"!-- google_ad_client="ca-pub-2427831169011625"; google_ad_width=300; google_ad_height=250; google_ad_format="300x250_as"; google_ad_type="text"; google_ad_channel ="8681602088"; google_color_border="FFF3DB"; google_color_bg="FFF3DB"; google_color_link="1B0431"; google_color_url="1B0431"; google_color_text="29303B"; //--/script script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" /script /div

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, Reddy Ice Holdings, Inc. (

Today before the opening bell, Composite Technology Corp. announced that subsidiary DeWind, Inc. has shipped the last five D8-2000 wind turbines for a wind power generation project in Chile. The company previously shipped five turbines to the Port of Houston for the same project. The ten turbines were assembled by TECO Westinghouse in Round Rock, Texas where DeWind’s D8-2000 and D8.2 turbine assembly capabilities have been established under the terms of a Commercial Manufacturing Agreement.

Robert Rugh, President of DeWind, stated, “This shipment successfully completes the assembly phase of this turbine supply contract. The nacelles and hubs will meet up with the blades already shipped from Germany and customer supplied towers in Chile. We now look forward to the successful erection and commissioning per the customer schedule.”

Let us hear your thoughts below:

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, Reddy Ice Holdings, Inc. (FRZ) is the largest manufacturer and distributor of packaged ice in the United States. The company sells its products primarily under the Reddy Ice® brand to approximately 82,000 consumer locations in 31 states and the District of Columbia.Management is attempting to grow the top line through an aggressive acquisition strategy. However, due to adverse weather conditions in 2007, management twice lowered guidance. In 2008, management lowered guidance after reporting earnings each and every quarter. In September 2008, the Board suspended payment of the quarterly cash dividend.In addition, the highly leveraged balance sheet, highly seasonal earnings, and the write-down of equity due to the impairment of assets are concerns. The stock is rated a Sell.Read the full analyst report on FRZ "FRZ" Free Stock Analysis: Buy? Sell? Hold?...

Encore Wire Corporation (...