Mark Hulbert says the 3rd year of a Presidential cycle (2011) averages a 24% gain in the past 70 years with no down years. Link
The top 50 stocks in the SP500 contributed to about 60% of its performance for the year. Link
BGP – Borders delays payments to some vendors. Link
Demand for entry level handsets weak. Link
Bill Gross says stay out of dollar-denominated debt. Link
WSJ interview with George Soros. Link
AMZN – Amazon publishes its “best of 2010″ lists. Link
Head of New York Fed, Bill Dudley, talks to hedge-funds and Wall Street CEOs on a regular basis. Link
AMZN NFLX AAPL – Amazon, Netflix, and Apple top customer satisfaction surveys. Link
BKS – Nooks is Barnes & Noble’s all-time best selling product. Link
MBI – MBIA rallying on news JP Morgan and Barclay’s withdrawing a lawsuit. Link
Comparing today’s market to three period market sell-offs. Link
November pending home sales +3.5% m/m vs. -3% est.
December Chicago PMI 68.6 vs. 61.5 est. Last month 62.5
Jobless claims 388K vs. 415K est. previous week revised to 422K
comScore report holiday online sales +13 y/y. Link
Nintendo issues warning against 3DS use by children age 6 and under. Link
AAPL – Due to a job listing, SemiAccurate speculates Apple may eventually switch to Apple designed ARM CPUs for some of their laptops. Link
Hon Hai Chairman Terry Guo says 2011 revenue growth will beat 2010 (+60% y/y). Link
AMZN – Channel checks show Kindle shipments reaching 1.6 million in December. Analysts estimate 5.4M sold in 2010 and shipments of 4.5M units in Q1-2011. Link
You can hack the Nook Color to be a cheap color Android tablet. Link
AMZN – Jeff Bezos early job post in 1994. Link
BJ – NYPost says Leonard Green & Partners may launch a hostile bid. Link
China actually cut rare earth export quotas in first half of 2011 by 35%. Link
MGM – Phil Ruffin, owner of Treasure Island, has approached MGM to buy the Mirage casino. Link
Fidelity backtests some SP500 trading strategies. Link
Go, chess or poker? Link
NFLX – According to AdWeek Netflix is talking to several ad agencies about potential international assignments. Link
Bill Gross says the Feds will bail out the states and local governments in 2011, so buy CA and NY munis now he says. Link
Fortune is reporting Groupon is in talks to raise another $950M in VC funding. Link
Short interest in SP500 the lowest level since December 2007. Link
AOL spent $300M on those annoying 1990s marketing CDs. Link
Reuters on China cutting rare earth quotes again. Link
Digitimes reports Apple expects to ship Wi-Fi, UMTS, and CDMA versions of the iPad 2 in a 3:4:3 ratio. 500-530K units are expected in January with 60-65% of the units 3G versions. Supply chain checks estimate 16M iPads in 2010. Link
December consumer confidence 52.5 vs. 57.4 est., November was 54.1
ECB didn’t fully sterilize their bond buying, which means it is QE-ing. Link
October Case-Shiller housing index -0.8% y/y vs. +0.1% est., prior revised to +0.44% vs. 0.59%
China issued 2011 export quotes for rare earths to 14,446 metric tons vs. 16,304 this year
SHLD – Sears/Kmart partners with Roxio to start an online movie download service called Alphaline Entertainment. Link
APKT – Boston.com article on the founding of Acme Packet. Link
Holiday sales return to pre-recession levels. Link
-2008 -6%, 2009 +4%, 2010 +5.5% on the 50 days before Christmas according to MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse
-apparel +11.2%, jewelry +8.4%, luxury goods +6.7%, furniture and home furnishings +1.6%
Japan November CPI ex-food -0.5% y/y vs. -0.6% est. Link
MCP – Molycorp resumes mining rare earths in Moutain Pass, California. The site was shut down in 2002. Link
China raises rates 25bps to 5.81%. 1 year deposit rate goes to 2.75%. Link
AAPL – Apple raises Q1-2011 iPhone shipment forecast to 20-21 million units from 19 million units. CDMA shipments will be 5-6 million units. Q4 shipment will be 15.5 million units with a total of 47 million units for 2010. Link
Mastercard says holiday online shopping from October 31 to December 24 was up 15.4% y/y. Link
EXPE – Expedia hides American Airlines fares in solidarity with Orbitz. Link
November new home sales 290K vs. 300K est., +5.5% m/m
December University of Michigan sentiment 74.5 vs. 75 est. and 71.6 prior month
Food inflation in India is +12.3% y/y. Onion prices are +33.5% y/y. Link
Jobless claims 420K vs. 420K est.
Durable goods -1.3% vs. -1% est. Ex-transportation 2.4% vs. 0.8% est.
Core PCE 0.1% vs. 0.1% est.
Consumer spending 0.4% vs. 0.5% est.
Personal income 0.3% vs. 0.2% est.
ROVI SNIC – Rovi buys Sonic Solutions for $14.17/share.
Elaine Garzarelli on being bullish on the stock market: “In Japan, after they implemented QE1 [quantitative easing], and they did it with aggression, the stock market [Nikkei] went up 50 percent. The second time they did it with aggression, like we’re [U.S.] doing it, the stock market went up 80 percent. When they stopped QE, the stock market went down 50 percent” Link
Investment themes by year 1996-2010. Link
November existing home sales 4.68M vs. 4.65M est. +5.6% m/m
Q3 GDP 2.6% vs. 2.7% est.
AAPL – Apple says Apple TV will top 1 million units sold later this week. iTunes users are renting and purchasing 400K TV episodes and over 150K movies per day. Link
ATVI ERTS – Activision sues Electronic Arts for $400M over Infinity Ward tampering. Link
ATVI – Activision announces Call of Duty: Black Ops passed $1 billion of sales. Link
AMZN – Bloomberg reporting Amazon will sell 8 million Kindles this year. Link
ARMH MSFT – Microsoft reportedly working on a Windows OS that works on ARM processors. Link
FreshDirect is looking to raise $200 million. Shades of 1999? Link
SEC investigating Chinese companies that listed on U.S. stock exchanges through reverse mergers. Link
MEE – Reuters reports Alpha Natural Resources has made an offer to buy Massey Energy. Link
Interview with a smart tech investor, David Siminoff of Peak Capital. Link
RIMM – Analysts debate the prospects of RIMM. Link
SNE – Sony says TV division will fall short. Link
Top 10 CEO wealth creators and destroyers. Link
NFLX – Reed Hastings, the CEO of NFLX, writes on why the shorts are wrong. Link
Meredith Whitney predicts municipal debt problem within 12 months on 60 Minutes. Link
Details on the Fed balance sheet. Over $1 trillion in MBS, $970B in Treasuries. Total $2.367 trillion. Link
Tumblr raises $30M at a $155 valuation. Link
NFLX – Whitney Tilson writes on why Netflix is his biggest short. Link
House passes tax cut bill. Link
Moody’s downgrades Irish bonds. Link