Christmas trees are usually a welcome sight to retailers, but not when bears are hanging the ornaments.

JDS Uniphase (JDSU) is having a terrific morning on Thursday as it has gained nearly 11%. When a stock breaks out like this, we always look for a catalyst for the move and in this case the primary reason seems to us to be an endorsement from Jim Cramer. We often cover Cramer’s Mad Money show on our blog because of this reason; he moves stocks, specifically stocks that he spends a fair amount of time on. There are small examples of the “Cramer Effect” all the time, but a recent example was when he discussed a bullish thesis on mining stock Freeport McMoran (FCX) and in the absence of any other news he created frenzied buying the next day. The stock finished that day with its largest one-day gain in history rising 11%. It appears that there is something similar going on with JDSU Thursday.

“A well-executed retail strategy can turn a profit, grow the business, and increase market share. Our upgrade of Carter’s rating in September partly reflected the company’s sustained same-store sales growth and margin expansion in its retail business, even in the recession.” [ Analysts at BMO Capital Markets initiated coverage of Carter on Oct 28 with an "outperform" rating. Analysts at Sterne Agee upgraded the company from "neutral" to "buy" on Oct 4.]

The USA has illegally siphoned off data from Swift, Europe's biggest clearing house for money transfers, since 9/11 and now hopes to retroactively legalize its illegal snooping on innocent European account holders.

• Over the next five years, xDSL subscriptions will fall as subscriptions to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband rise from 4% to 10% of US online households.
• Cable modem subscribership will remain steady, with only very modest overall broadband market share loss compared with telco broadband (fiber and xDSL combined).
• Consumers will continue to migrate away from dial-up, for which steady losses will continue over the next two years.
• Shifts will also occur relative to the speed tiers to which consumers subscribe, with both supply and demand factors encouraging more consumers to buy higher-speed service. (Click chart to enlarge)

“Let’s get to the AMAT news because you see the stock reacting in rather nicely, up 3% on this news. Applied Materials just absolutely blowing through all forecasts here. The company reporting 13 cents a share against the 3 cents that Wall Street was anticipating on much better than expected revenue as well. $1.53 billion against the $1.317 or $1.32 billion consensus. Look at the new orders as well, $1.47 billion. The expectations were about $1.24 billion. If you were looking for cap-ex improvements by some of the major chip makers out there…”– CNBC’s Closing Bell 11/11/2009

The weighting is based on the dividend yield and is capped at 15%. The inception date of this index was 3/4/2008. Last year the index was down 46%.

Indeed, an economic paper published in 2007 by The Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst - entitled "The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities" - concludes:

Now, the world's biggest gold producer - Barrick Gold (ABX)- is saying the same thing:

In the 20 years of VIX historical data, the VIX has typically overestimated the realized volatility 21 trading days hence, which is reflected in the chart below by the dotted green RV (+21d) line. In fact, the gray area portion of the graphic, which represents the difference between the VIX and realized volatility 21 trading days later, was close to 30% in the first half of the 1990s; more recently it has been averaging closer to 20%. The VIX actually fell below realized volatility for 2008, which is not surprising, given the volatility extremes of October and November.

Several U.S. Senators have introduced a bill to provide a tax incentive to solar energy equipment manufacturers in a bid to create new jobs.

Click here for a full replay of the webinar

Naturally, all this got me thinking. We are clearly in the midst of a shift in how media is consumed, but how long will it be until we say something like, “Remember when TV had channels?” The answer may be sooner than you think.

Taking advantage of new taxes on high earners in the U.K. and fears of tightened hedge fund regulation around the world, the well-known tax shelter hopes to build its own tax base by encouraging hedge fund managers to move to the islands as it struggles to fill a budget deficit.

The Australian Fund Monitors Index dipped 0.3% last month, according to early reports from its constituent funds. The decline leaves Down Under hedge funds up 17.6% on the year.

Under the terms of the settlement, Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion. Among other key items (statement):

The chart below shows the Russell 3000 performance across ten groups. Group 1 contains the smallest stocks by market capitalization, while group 10 contains the largest stocks. As shown, the smallest stocks gained an average of 359.55% between 3/9/09 and 8/31/09, more than double the next-best group. The largest stocks were the worst performers during that period, gaining an average of 58.73%.

During this time period the government of Argentina followed a very undisciplined approach to economic policy while it kept itself in power and suppressed dissent. In 2001, Argentina declared the largest sovereign debt default in history. Things have not gotten much better since.

Original post

As AOL prepares to spin off from Time Warner (TWX) in an IPO, it wants to gussy itself up so that it looks as appealing as possible to public investors. Thursday, AOL disclosed that it plans yet another restructuring which could cost as much as $200 million. The biggest cost savings from any restructuring is usually through layoffs, and the latest round has already started at AOL, with 100 let go this week and as many as 1,000 of its 6,000 jobs at risk of being eliminated.

The Labor Department Thursday reported that initial jobless claims dropped to 502,000 last week, down from the previous week’s 514,000. That leaves us at the lowest level since the week through January 3, 2009. As our chart below reminds us, the trend has certainly been our friend this year for the general change in jobless claims.

When the Dow broke 10,000 (for the nth time) in the middle of last month, I cautioned that stocks had risen into thin air (again). The S&P 500 meandered around 1090 for a few days and then fell back.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

Guidance

Analysts are looking for a profit of 20c on revenue of $764.53M. The consensus range is 10c-27c for EPS, and revenue of $707M-$800M, according to First Call. The company's September same-store sales fell 18% and October SSS dropped 15%, both smaller declines than expected. While Abercrombie's stock price has doubled since the market began rebounding in early March, despite disappointing sales and profits,