BEST STOCKS IN 2010 ...

Here are the 10 best-performing S&P 500 stock this year so far.








Top S&P 500 performers in 2010













YTD





Last close



1





Akamai Technologies (AKAM)





100%





$50.59



2





Cummins (CMI)





93%





$88.31



3





Citrix Systems (CTXS)





64%





$68.43



4





Lexmark (LXK)





62%





$42.05



5





Salesforce.com (CRM)





59%





$117.49



6





Zions Bancorp (ZION)





57%





$20.10



7





Family Dollar (FDO)





55%





$43.27



8





Priceline.com (PCLN)





54.30%





$337.20



9





Huntington Bancshares (HBAN)





54.25%





$5.63



10





Titanium Metals (TIE)

52% $19.11



10 dividend stocks most likely to outperform

Here's a closer look at these winners:





10. Titanium Metals (TIE)







2010 gain: 52%







Shares of this Dallas supplier of titanium parts have jumped 88% over the past 12 months. Titanium Metals is benefiting from renewed demand from aerospace customers. The company doubled its second-quarter profit to $19 million, or 11 cents a share, as revenue grew 3% to $212 million. Demand last year shrank as companies cut production of planes and other products. The situation has since reversed, and Titanium Metals CEO Bobby O'Brien said earlier this year that he expects sales to increase in 2010. D.A. Davidson rates the stock "buy" and expects the shares to climb 20%, to $23, over 12 months.







9. Huntington Bancshares (HBAN)







2010 gain: 54.25%







In the first quarter, this Columbus, Ohio, bank reported its first profit in more than a year, exceeding analysts' estimates with a profit of $40 million. In the second quarter, Huntington beat expectations again with a profit of $48.8 million, or 3 cents a share, after a year-earlier loss. Analysts had predicted a loss. Earlier this month, Sanford Bernstein and Raymond James (RJF) boosted their ratings on the stock. Though almost half of the analysts who follow the stock rate it "hold," Stifel Nicolaus rates the company "buy" and says shares could rise 60%, to $9, during the next year.







8. Priceline.com (PCLN)







2010 gain: 54.3%







This Norfolk, Conn., travel-booking website is best known for its online auction process, but it's benefiting most from the second-quarter acquisition of TravelJigsaw, an international car service. The deal helped the company, fronted by William Shatner, boost bookings by $43.9 million in the second quarter. Priceline is also gaining from international bookings, which grew three times faster than domestic bookings. The company forecasts this trend to continue this quarter, with revenue increasing as much as 34% and profit as much as 48%. Three-quarters of analysts who track the stock rate it "buy." Citigroup (C) said the shares could advance 25% to $425 during the next 12 months.







7. Family Dollar (FDO)







2010 gain: 55%







A weak economy has created opportunities for Family Dollar, the discount variety-store chain. The Matthews, N.C., company has increased earnings more than 10% for the past nine quarters. Family Dollar sales at stores open at least a year rose 6.1% during the quarter that ended in August, when the company opened 75 new stores. CEO Howard Levine said his store chain has spent the past year improving its merchandise and expanding its hours. Half of analysts who track the company rate it "buy," including Barclays (BCS), which says the stock could rise 20%, to $52, over 12 months.



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6. Zions Bancorp (ZION)







2010 gain: 57%







Salt Lake City's Zions Bancorp is the best-performing stock in the 80-member S&P Financials Index this year. The company has been struggling to return to profitability, reporting an 84-cent loss in the second quarter, compared with the 52-cent loss analysts had expected. Zions, which has more than 500 banking offices in 10 states, has taken steps to shore up its balance sheet. Two-thirds of the 27 analysts who follow the company rate its shares "hold," but Cantor Fitzgerald rates the stock "buy" and says it could rise 59%, to $32, during the next 12 months.







5. Salesforce.com (CRM)







2010 gain: 59%







Like many companies hatched in the late 1990s, Salesforce.com was started in a San Francisco apartment. The company has been using social-networking tools to draw new subscribers to its online client-management service, adding 30% more customers in the quarter ended in July. The company has increased annual sales by 34%, on average, during the past five years. Salesforce expects to boost revenue by as much as 23% in its current fiscal year. More than half of analysts who follow the stock rate it "buy." Kaufman Bros. has set a 12-month price target of $140, suggesting the shares could rise 19%.







4. Lexmark (LXK)







2010 gain: 62%





Shares of printer maker Lexmark have gained 3.4% annually, on average, during the past three years, outperforming those of rivals Xerox (XRX), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Eastman Kodak (EK) and Canon (CAJ).







The Lexington, Ky., company, led by CEO Paul Curlander, has been expanding its profit margins by cutting expenses and boosting demand in key product areas, such as printer supplies. Analysts are divided over the stock, with 43% considering it "buy" and 36% rating it "hold." Citigroup (C) says the shares could climb as high as 31% to $55 during the next year.







3. Citrix Systems (CTXS)







2010 gain: 64%







Citrix Systems' software, which allows customers to use fewer servers and operate software remotely, has been gaining popularity as more companies rely on offsite workers. The Santa Clara, Calif., company increased revenue 17% in the second quarter from a year earlier, helped by rapidly growing demand in Asia. The stock has jumped 89% in the past year, and many analysts think the shares might have peaked. While one-third of analysts rate the stock "buy," two-thirds rate it "hold." Still, Lazard has set a 12-month price target of $80, which would be a 17% gain.







2. Cummins (CMI)







2010 gain: 93%







Cummins, a Columbus, Ind., maker of engines and engine parts, has been a hot pick among investors looking to tap industrial markets in developing countries. Shares have jumped 92% in the past 12 months. In the second quarter, earnings increased almost fivefold to $246 million, or $1.25 a share, as the company increased sales 32% to $3.2 billion.







Cummins raised its quarterly dividend by 50% and had its credit rating increased by Standard & Poor's. Analysts are bullish, with 10, or 59%, of those following the stock rating it "buy" and seven rating it "hold." Goldman Sachs (GS) values Cummins stock at $104; it closed July 15 at $88.31.







1. Akamai Technologies (AKAM)







2010 gain: 100%







Akamai Technologies' software makes websites and online video run faster. As cloud computing and video streaming become more common for Internet users, the Cambridge, Mass., company is positioned to benefit. Its shares have doubled this year. The company has met or beat analysts' estimates in each of the past four quarters. This quarter, Akamai expects to earn 32 to 34 cents a share, excluding some items. Revenue is forecast to increase as much as 22% to $252 million.







Although two-thirds of analysts who follow the stock rate it "hold," Goldman Sachs rates it "buy" and says the shares could rise 19%, to $60, during the next year.

Will WORLD FOREX: Euro Gains Vs Dollar; Focus Is On Stress Tests Work ? NYSE- HAS,AAPL,WFC,DAL,GOOG,C,F,CPTC,GE,VALE,V,KO

(Dow Jones)--The euro rose against the dollar Monday as investors anticipated that stress tests of European banks would allay concerns about the region's banking sector.




The euro managed to gain in spite of a downgrade of Ireland's credit rating Monday and the breakdown in funding talks between Hungary and the International Monetary Fund over the weekend. A disappointing U.S. housing-market index also helped the common currency to gain against the dollar.



Initial results from the stress tests, due Friday, are the most important of this week's economic releases, said Jessica Hoversen, fixed-income and foreign-exchange analyst at MF Global in Chicago.



Some fears about euro-zone banks have been mitigated in recent weeks, but "the ability of the stress tests to soothe investor concerns will rely on the robustness of the tests," she said.



Monday shortly before noon, the euro was at $1.2971 from $1.2927 late Friday, according to EBS via CQG. The dollar was at Y86.67 from Y86.61, while the euro was at Y112.43 from Y111.95. The U.K. pound was at $1.5227 from $1.5298. The dollar was at CHF1.0513 from CHF1.0519.



The ICE Dollar index, which tracks the dollar against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, was at 82.452 from 82.535.



The dollar ticked down against the euro and yen after the National Association of Home Builders housing-market index fell to 14 in July, its lowest reading since April 2009, showing that U.S. housing activity continued to decline after the expiry of a home buyers' tax credit. Economists had expected a reading of 16.



Concerns over the U.S. economy have dominated currency markets recently. A string of disappointing U.S. data releases fueled fears that the U.S. recovery is faltering and sent the U.S. currency to a seven-month low against the yen and a two-month low against the euro late last week.



However, anticipation over stress tests is now dominating trading, said Simon Smollet, senior foreign-exchange options strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in London.

Hasbro (NYSE:HAS) second-quarter profit climbed to $43.6 million, or 29 cents a share, from $39.3 million, or 26 cents a share, as declining costs more than offset a 7% slide in revenue to $737.8 million. The toy maker said the fall in revenue came after last year’s initial movie product ship-ins from the Transformers and G.I. Joe movies. The company still expects EPS and revenue to rise in 2010. Analysts had expected earnings of 25 cents a share. –MarketWatch




The dollar fell the most against the euro in 14 months and dropped to the lowest level this year versus the yen as economic reports added to evidence that the U.S. recovery is losing momentum. The greenback touched a level weaker than $1.30 versus the shared currency as minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting last month indicated policy makers trimmed their forecasts for growth. The euro rallied for a third straight week against the dollar before partial results of stress tests on the region’s banking system due on July 23. “It’s really dollar weakness based on some evidence the economy is slowing,” said Vassili Serebriakov, a currency strategist at Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) in New York. “The economic indicators are pointing strongly toward slower growth in the second half of the year.” –Bloomberg



Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) will stop selling its Nexus One smartphone after some dismal sales figures. The company announced on July 16 that it received its final order from the phone’s manufacturer HTC, Read Write Web reported. In the time it took Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) to sell 1,000,000 iPhones, Google racked up a mere 135,000 Nexus One sales. –Daily Finance



Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) swung to a second-quarter profit, topping analysts’ expectations, on a strong rebound for a key revenue gauge. The industry expects to see profits return for the latest quarter as monthly performance numbers have taken off, though fuel costs have been climbing. Business travelers and consumers are returning to the skies amid an improved economy, following a recession that weighed heavily on airlines’ results. Delta’s report is the first from the major U.S. carriers. For the period, Delta reported earnings of $467 million, or 55 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $257 million, or 31 cents a share. The latest quarter included 10 cents in charges from items such as merger costs and aircraft retirements. Revenue rose 17% to $8.17 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently expected earnings of 63 cents a share on $8.25 billion in revenue. –The Wall Street Journal




The Committee of European Banking Supervisors is testing 91 banks to see whether the banks can withstand a three-percentage-point decline in gross domestic production from European Commission forecasts for 2010 and 2011. The committee will also test for resilience to sovereign risk at a level beyond the market conditions experienced in early May.



"I think people are still optimistic," said Smollet. "Banks will need extra capital, but hopefully the capital will be a reasonable amount that the market can provide."



That optimism helped the common currency to gain, even though Moody's Investors Service downgraded Ireland's credit rating, citing a rising debt burden, the high cost of rebuilding the country's banking system and sluggish growth as factors in the decision. The agency cut the rating from Aa2 from Aa1, with a stable outlook, indicating it isn't likely to consider a further downgrade soon.



"It registered with everyone as being a reasonable rating" and was probably already priced into the euro, said Smollet.



The other big news out of Europe was the dissolution of talks between the IMF and Hungary over that country's access to the remainder of its existing EUR20 billion standby credit line.



The euro shot almost 3% higher against the forint at the start of European trading hours to reach just over HUF290, taking the forint back down to its lowest levels in more than a year after negotiators for the IMF and European Union walked away from talks because Hungary hadn't delivered on required austerity measures.



The breakdown in talks between Hungary and the multilateral bodies has implications beyond Eastern Europe, as it offers a clear sign that international aid is tied to strict conditions.



-By F. McInni

The Dow plunges more than 1,000 points, then bounces halfway back. Greece's parliament votes for the EU-IMF bailout despite intense protests. Moody's warns that the economic crisis could weigh on European banks.

The Dow plunges more than 1,000 points, then bounces halfway back. Greece's parliament votes for the EU-IMF bailout despite intense protests. Moody's warns that the economic crisis could weigh on European banks.

An enormous panic hit the U.S. stock market today, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) briefly below 10,000 for the first time since November 2009 before the market turned again.

The Dow was down nearly 1,000 points at 9,869.62 at about 2:40 p.m. when it suddenly rebounded. At 3:20 p.m. ET, the Dow was down 472 points, or 4.3% to 10,397. The Dow lost 919 points between 1 p.m. and 2:40 p.m. It dropped as many 998 points on an intraday basis, the largest such decline since 1987.

The Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) had lost 109 points, or 4.6%, to 2,293, and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) had shed 50 points, or 4.3%, to 1,116.

The panic hit as traders worried that European financial markets would seize up. But it seemed worsened by a breakdown in the computerized market reporting systems in New York. One issue appeared to be a misprint in the price of Procter & Gamble (PG), which closed Wednesday at $62.12 and suddenly was at $39.37. Then, the stock was quoted at $60.81 at 3:10 p.m.

The selling came despite vote by Greece's parliament to pass the 110 billion euro ($146 billion) European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout package.

Worries that the package won't prevent the crisis from spreading to Portugal and Spain and even beyond overshadowed any optimism from the vote. The euro was plunging against the U.S. dollar, and

Also adding to the day's stress were weaker-than-expected April sales reports from retailers.
 
Greece agreed to the bailout package last weekend, which included strict austerity measures like cuts to public-sector wages, cuts to public- and private-sector pensions and an increase to the value-added tax. Thousands of Greek workers have been protesting the measures in recent days, and three people died.

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Stocks have plunged on worries that the bailout would not be enough to prevent the crisis from spreading across Europe or to prevent Greece from defaulting on its debt.

Moody's Investors Service said that the fiscal crisis in Europe could threaten banks in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom. "Each of these countries' banking systems faces different challenges of different magnitudes," Moody's said. But the "contagion risk could dilute these differences and impose very real, common threats on all of them."

The sell-off pushed the euro lower against the U.S. dollar, and U.S. interest rates dropped. There were worries about a new credit crisis erupting.

The Dow has fallen about 5.7% since peaking on April 25. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are off 7.2% and 8.4% since their peaks on April 24, respectively.

The declines are not too far off from the January-February decline. The Dow fell 6.7% between Jan. 19 and Feb. 4, with the S&P 500 off 7.6% and the Nasdaq down 8.4%.

The weakest sectors of the market were financial and energy stocks. Energy shares dropped as crude oil dropped to $77.13 a barrel, down $2.84. Gold was up $22.30 to $1,197.30.

All of the 30 Dow stocks were lower. Procter & Gamble, ironically, was the best performer, down just 1.4%. Bank of America (BAC), down 8.2% to $16.09 was the Dow laggard. Meanwhile, 58 S&P 500 stocks were showing gains, along with only 10 stocks in the Nasdaq-100 Index ($NDX.X). The index was down 54 points, or 2.7%, to 1,905.

Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) was the S&P 500 leader, up 14.2% on a report in The Wall Street Journal that the provider of back-office services to financial companies is in talks to be taken private by a group headed by the Blackstone Group (BX).

Rival Fiserv (FISV) was up 7.4% to $54.71 to lead the Nasdaq-100.

Apple (AAPL), down 2.2% to $250.38, contributed 6 points to the Nasdaq-100's decline. Apple is down 8.4% since peaking on an intraday basis at $272.46 on April 26.

Caution about economy weighs on markets
There wasn't a lot of bullishness about the economy.
  St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said today that the European debt crisis weigh on a recovery for the U.S. economy.

"One risk to the outlook . . . is the fallout from potential sovereign debt default as conditions continue to deteriorate in Greece and other countries," Bullard told an audience at Washington University's Olin Business School.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke also spoke about the economy, although his comments were slightly more upbeat. "Although bank credit remains tight, I see some reasons for optimism," Bernanke said today in a speech in Chicago.

"Senior loan officers tell us, at least outside of commercial real estate, they anticipate a modest reduction in their troubled loans over the coming year," Bernanke said. "As a result, bank attitudes toward lending may be shifting."

ECB keeps rates steady
The European Central Bank kept its key lending rate steady at a record low of 1% this morning, and ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said that the financial crisis will likely weaken economic growth.

"We expect the euro area economy to expand at a moderate pace in 2010, but growth patterns could be uneven in an environment of high uncertainty," Trichet said at a news conference.

Trichet also said that he welcomes the Greek austerity plan but that  the ECB did not discuss buying any government debt at its meeting today. Greece and Portugal are "not in the same boat," Trichet said. He also said that the prospect of a default within the eurozone "is, for me, out of the question."

The euro fell to a 14-month low against the dollar after the rate announcement, sending the dollar higher. Crude oil was down $2.64 to $77.43 a barrel.

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Initial jobless claims fall
First-time jobless claims fell by 7,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 444,000, the Labor Department said this morning, in line with expectations and the third straight week of declines. The report comes a day ahead of the government's April nonfarm payrolls report. Economists are looking for a gain of 185,000 jobs.

The four-week moving average of initial claims, which takes out weekly volatility, fell by 4,750 to 458,500 last week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average posted its biggest intraday loss since the market crash of 1987, the euro slid to a 14-month low and yields on Greek, Spanish and Italian bonds surged on concern European leaders aren’t doing enough to stem the region’s debt crisis. U.S. Treasuries surged.

The New York Stock Exchange told CNBC that there were no system errors during the Dow’s plunge as speculation of bad trades swirled through the market. The Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. said it is working with other markets to review the plunge.

“It’s panic selling,” said Burt White, chief investment officer at LPL Financial in Boston, which oversees $379 billion. “There’s concern that the European situation might cool down global growth and freeze the credit markets.”

The Dow average lost as much as 998.5 points, or 9.2 percent, before paring its drop to 383.17 points at 3:40 p.m. in New York. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell as much as 8.6 percent, its biggest plunge since December 2008, before trimming its decline to 3.5 percent.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet held interest rates steady at a record low of 1 percent today and said the bank didn’t discuss whether to purchase government bonds to stem the region’s debt crisis, defying market speculation that he would take such measures. The euro maintained losses even as Greece’s parliament approved austerity measures demanded by the European Union and International Monetary Fund as a condition of its 110 billion euro ($140 billion) bailout.

Market ‘Horrified’

“The ECB can fix this instantly by doing what the Fed has done -- instantly providing liquidity by buying bad fixed-income instruments and paying cash in U.S. dollars,” said David Kovacs, head of quantitative strategies at Turner Investment Partners in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, which manages $18 billion. “The reason the market is horrified now is Trichet said it’s not even being discussed. Smart investors are basically selling risk assets.”

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index today joined the MSCI World Index and the Stoxx 600 Index in wiping out its advance for 2010. The Dow and S&P 500 briefly erased their yearly gains before paring losses.

Bank of America Corp., General Electric Co. and Boeing Co. tumbled more than 5 percent to lead declines in the 30-stock Dow average.

The benchmark index for U.S. stock options surged as much as 62 percent, the most since February 2007, to 40.26. The VIX, as the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index is known, measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the S&P 500.

Treasury Yields

Yields on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note plunged 14 basis points to 3.398 percent on demand for assets considered the most safe. The Dollar Index, which measures the currency against six major trading partners, jumped as much as 1.4 percent.

Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage securities that guide U.S. home-loan rates jumped the most relative to Treasuries in almost a year as investors flocked to the safety of U.S. government notes on concern Europe’s leaders aren’t doing enough to halt their debt crisis.

Spreads on Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30-year fixed-rate mortgage bonds widened about 0.1 percentage point to 0.89 percentage point more than 10-year Treasuries as of 2:45 p.m. in New York, the biggest jump since May 27, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The gap touched a record low of 0.59 percentage point on March 29 as the Federal Reserve that month completed its purchases of $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage bonds.

“Fear is taking over, and images of Greek mobs aren’t helping,” said Larry Peruzzi, equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets in Boston, Massachusetts, referring to televised images of demonstrations against austerity measures in Athens. “Buyers are stepping aside and disregarding fundamentals.”

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits dropped by 59,000, to 4.59 million, in the week ended April 24; economists had expected a decline to 4.61 million. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of people receiving extended benefits under federal programs.

A separate report from the Labor Department said that productivity rose at a 3.6% annual rate in the first quarter, the smallest pace in a year, after rising at a 6.3% pace in the fourth quarter. Economists were looking for employee output to have risen at a 2.5% pace.

Unit labor costs fell at a 1.6% pace last quarter after a 5.6% drop in the fourth quarter. Economists had expected costs to have declined 0.7%. 

Top March 2009 Stock Picks ! ( Family Dollar Stores & Allos Therapeutics

1. ALTH 5.84 a share Target price 12.00 by 12/09

Allos Therapeutics, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company that is focused on developing and commercializing small molecule drugs for the treatment of cancer. The Company’s lead product candidate, PDX (pralatrexate) an antifolate is in Phase 2 trial in patients with relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma. The Company is also investigating PDX in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and a range of other lymphoma sub-types. The Company’s other product candidate is RH1, a targeted chemotherapeutic agent, which is in a Phase 1 trial in patients with advanced solid tumors or non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.
No doubt the market has cost investors a lot of money over the past year and a half. The image of people too afraid to open their 401(k) statements has become cliché. And the common wisdom says that years will pass before those losses are recovered.
But that’s not necessarily the case. Speculating on the right stocks could generate sizable returns, enough to fill some of the holes this recession has poked in your portfolio. That’s one of the reasons that Cramer’s a fan of calculated risk taking. The potential payoff is significant. Speculation’s also a way to keep things interesting. Instead of banking with the usual suspects – maybe Coca-Cola
[KO 40.85 -0.22 (-0.54%) ]
Johnson & Johnson
[JNJ 50.00 -2.44 (-4.65%) ]
[AAPL 89.31 0.12 (+0.13%) ]
– investors can put their money in a small up-and-comer.
So who’s the latest Mad Money Spec Friday pick? Allos Therapeutics
[ALTH 5.64 -0.42 (-6.93%) ]
, a biotech with a $5.64 share price and a market cap of under $500 million. Like all speculation plays, Allos has a catalyst – the probable Food & Drug Administration approval of its cancer drug – that should send the stock higher.
Allos makes an orphan drug called Pralatrexate, or PDX, used to treat peripheral T-cell lymphoma, a fast-spreading cancer that affects white blood cells. Remember an orphan drug is one that treats a very rare condition. So the FDA usually fast tracks approval, the company gets exclusivity rights to the drug, and the sales usually bring in big, big money.
Exclusivity or not, though, PDX is the only treatment for peripheral T-cell lymphoma, so there’s no competition here anyway. President Obama’s plan for Medicare, where the government will negotiate bulk drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, could hurt those with similar treatments, but not Allos. And orphan drugs in Europe, where the government already negotiates prices, usually cost the same as, if not more than, those in the U.S. Besides, PDX has been proven to extend patients’ lives. Don’t expect the White House to put a price on that.
On Feb. 4, Allos released data that showed patients who had previously not responded to treatment were responding to PDX, and for longer than expected. The stock popped as a result, and then the market’s decline took ALTH back down. Now ALTH is two points below where it was before the data release, giving investors a great entry point.
Cramer expects Allos to file for final FDA approval by the end of June, which means the drug could be on the market by year’s end. Worst-case scenario, analysts have said, PDX is available to the public by 2010. Sales for the drug could reach as high as $400 million a year, with the chance for even better numbers given PDX’s potential for off-label uses, much like Genentech’s
[DNA 85.55 -1.93 (-2.21%) ]",

Avastin. PDX is more potent than other chemotherapy drugs, so there’s a good chance it could treat other cancers.
Allos makes a great takeover target as well. The company’s a natural fit for any big-time firm with a blood cancer franchise, such as Celgene
got a bid.
Allos reports Tuesday, March 3, so Cramer cautioned against buying before then. The company has no sales yet, so management offer clues as to whether the company’s still on track and possibly even date-release dates on the horizon.
ALTH is a buy at $6, Cramer said, but no more. At $7, the deal doesn’t work. Investors who want in should remember to be patient and use limit orders.



2. FDO 27.44 A SHARE AS OF 3/1 , TARGET PRICE 41.00 by 9/09

Family Dollar Stores, Inc. operates a chain of more than 6,500 general merchandise retail discount stores in 44 states, providing consumers with a selection of merchandise in neighborhood stores. The Company’s merchandise assortment includes consumables, home products, apparel and accessories, and seasonal and electronics. The Company’s products include apparel, food, cleaning and paper products, home decor, beauty and health aids, toys, pet products, automotive products, domestics, seasonal goods and electronics. With a Dividend of .14 a share , is a great buy in this market !In the same boat as Wal-Mart, discount retailers are the some of the few companies showed success in 2008. FDO's stock price gained 36% in 2008.Recession time will prompt more people to go to the dollar stores to $ave MONEY!!!! Due to people needing to cut back, people are going to eventually go from Walmart to Family Dollar as both are in the same merchant category and serve much the same purpose, but Family Dollar seems to undercut Walmart's prices for many items... but does so at a cost: lack of the wide range of products that Walmart does, but from what I've seen, this doesn't effect business one bit.Not bad on debt, fairly good P/E. I'm seeing a lot more "recession fashion" and how-to's on living more cheaply....this company is made for these times.I do about 75% of my regular shopping there (condiments, small food, bread, milk, some clothes.) The stores should do well in hard times.family Dollar Stores . . . need I say more?

D$llar Rally ! ( Barrons )

The Dollar Looks Ready to Rally
By KOPIN TAn

DON'T BELIEVE THE obituaries: The dollar isn't dead.
When the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates for a seventh consecutive time this Wednesday, it will begin to wind down a pernicious campaign that has flooded the market with cheap dollars since last summer. At the same time, the whoosh of air from Europe's deflating credit bubble puts new pressure on the European Central Bank to begin cutting borrowing costs in order to goose growth.
The result should be a major shift in global monetary policy that reverses billions of recent short-dollar, long-commodity bets and undercuts high-flying stocks like fertilizer outfit Mosaic (ticker: MOS) and oil-services giant Halliburton (HAL) that earn gobs of money overseas. The strategy shifts by central banks will drive a greenback comeback against the overpriced euro, turning back the 15% slide that since August has lifted the euro -- to a record $1.60 last week -- even as the dollar continues to struggle against the undervalued currencies of emerging Asia.
Monetary policy isn't the only catalyst for a healthier dollar. "A lot of what has happened since last summer also is emotional, and that can change on a dime," says James Paulsen, Wells Capital Management's chief investment strategist. Among other drivers: mounting evidence that the credit crisis loosening its grip stateside is still tightening across the Atlantic, and a growing belief that the U.S. economy could bottom and rebound before Europe's.
The rehabilitation, ironically, is driven by a weak dollar, which makes bargains of our exports, fills Manhattan's 65,000 hotel rooms with European tourists, and entices foreign giants from Ikea to Toyota to open factories here to exploit our increasingly cheap labor.
Already, the dollar has begun to strengthen against commodity-driven currencies from the Canadian loonie to the South African rand, and odds are it is close to a bottom against the euro, sterling and most developed-world currencies. On top of that, "negatives about the dollar are more fully discounted compared to the potential positives," says Marc Chandler, Brown Brothers Harriman's currency strategist, who expects the euro to pull back to test the $1.40 threshold this year.
A Parisian Vacation in 2009? Lower European rates relative to their U.S. peers should help the dollar climb out of its valley.
In the immediate future, the number of foreign central banks hiking rates could still exceed those cutting, "but the margin is narrowing," say Joachim Fels and Manoj Pradhan, Morgan Stanley's London-based global economists. "Looking further ahead, we expect more central banks, especially in the advanced economies, to join the easing path."
In other words, the buckling buck stops here.
JUST HOW CHEAP IS THE DOLLAR? It's at a 12-year low against the yen, and recently suffered the indignity of parity with the Canadian loonie. A euro worth 86 cents in early 2002 now fetches $1.60. Talk-show hosts have referred to it as the "U.S. peso."
It should have been obvious that a dollar bottom is in sight when Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen began demanding to be paid in euros instead of dollars. In an April survey conducted by Merrill Lynch, 50% of global money managers said the greenback is undervalued, up from 30% three months ago, while a whopping 71% found the euro overvalued.
The dollar's ills are well documented, and not all observers see relief at hand. "The U.S. economy continues to get weaker, which undermines confidence in the dollar," the Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz tells Barron's. Meanwhile, "inflation will continue to get worse, and a European Central Bank preoccupied with fighting inflation is unlikely to cut rates," he says.
But how much are these problems already discounted, given the shrill headlines about record gas prices and food riots from Haiti to Indonesia? Financier George Soros recently declared commodities are in a bubble. Our own "Big Money" poll of nearly 120 money managers (see "The Bulls Are Back,") found most waiting for a massive unwinding of the recent short-dollar, long-commodity crush: Nearly three-quarters say they expect the dollar to rise against the euro over the next 12 months, while 66% see commodity prices falling in the next six months.
Of course, the dollar can stay cheap even if everyone agrees it is so. That's why the shift in American and European rate expectations is such a crucial catalyst, since it can unleash a pent-up rush for the exits. As U.S. rates get nudged below 2%, the Fed quite literally must stop easing if it wants to preserve some flexibility for future emergencies.
"It's time for the Federal Reserve to stop" cutting rates "because the likely benefit is small compared to the potential damage," Martin Feldstein, the Harvard economist and head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, declared in an April 15 Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal ("Enough with the Interest Rate Cuts"). Just last week, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said rate cuts are no longer delivering "bang for the buck." He favors an end to monetary easing.
Things are different in Europe. The European Commission is looking to lower its Eurozone growth forecast below its current 1.8%. But the drumbeat of drab data hasn't peaked -- yet. "Europe is in the biggest credit bubble of all and it hasn't burst yet," says Banque AIG's London-based global strategist Bernard Connolly. "When it does, the euro will fall quite substantially."
SOME COUNTRIES -- BOTH WITHIN the European Monetary Union (like Spain, Greece and Portugal) and outside it (like Ireland and Iceland) -- are grappling with current account deficits, worrisome unemployment and slowing growth in the aftermath of credit and housing booms. Recent German business surveys also indicate weakening activity, and there are signs export growth is sputtering.
"Once a credit-driven boom goes bust in a country that has abandoned monetary independence, as is now happening in Spain, an apparently favorable budgetary position is soon revealed to be very unfavorable indeed," Connolly says. Unless Spain leaves the EMU or the European Central Bank "slashes rates and depreciates the euro massively," the country could face a 7% budget deficit instead of what could otherwise have been a 2% surplus come 2011.
To begin prodding growth, the Bank of England this month took the first step in trimming a key rate by a quarter percentage point to 5%, even as the ECB left its main rate at 4%. That sent the sterling scuttling to near record lows of 1.23 pounds against the euro. Against the dollar, it pulled back from a March peak of $2.04 to $1.96 and is most recently near $1.97. Is that a preview?
Table: Highflier Alert
Though amply reflected in the market, some of the dollar's pains are chronic, and not given to quick fixing. For a start, the ECB takes a hawkish view of runaway commodity costs, while the more dovish U.S. Fed -- so fond of stripping food and energy costs from inflation data, as if Americans do not eat and drive -- sees them as deflationary and ultimately a check on spending and prices.
Peter Thiel of hedge-fund Clarium Capital, who correctly predicted dollar weakness years ago, is skeptical about the convergence of European and American rates -- especially if high oil stays the ECB's rate-cutting hand. "Ultimately, there'll come a point when oil gets high enough for the Fed to stop thinking about stimulating growth and to worry about fighting inflation," Thiel says. That breaking point, however, may not come until oil hits $130 or $140.
That means things could get worse for the dollar before they get better. But with crude already flirting with $119, that once-unfathomable threshold is within sight.
David Woo, Barclays Capital's London-based currency strategist, thinks any one of three factors could bust the dollar out of its downward spiral: a big decline in commodity prices; a major U.S. stock-market correction that sparks a synchronized global economic slowdown or a sustained rise in long-term rates even as the Fed cuts borrowing costs. While the euro might overshoot to $1.63 within the next three months, Woo sees the dollar strengthening over the next year to $1.50 as one of these triggers is set off.
Other concerns persist. Dollar bears fret, for instance, about foreign central banks switching allegiances to other currencies, or oil producers breaking their pegs to the greenback. Axel Merk, who manages the Merk Hard Currency Fund (MERKX) and the Merk Asian Currency Fund (MEAFX), thinks the monumental current account deficits make the dollar still too reliant on inflows from abroad just to maintain its recent levels.
Heavy spending on the Iraq war, a big trade deficit and a mortgage-market meltdown haven't helped the dollar's cause, and the level of dollar holdings as a percentage of the globe's foreign exchange reserves has fallen more than seven percentage points this decade. But at 64%, the buck remains the planet's premier currency, well ahead of the euro's 26.5% and the yen's 3%.
Even as the greenback plummeted in the fourth quarter, dollar reserves held steady near the 64% mark, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund. This suggests that "reserve managers are reluctant to sell dollars at these levels," says BBH's Chandler. Also, "foreign central banks have been on a buying spree," and the Fed's custody holdings of U.S. securities for foreign official accounts jumped $145 billion in the first quarter of this year.
The Bottom Line:
The hard-hit U.S. dollar could gain 15% against the euro in the next 12 months. That would take some air out of the highfliers such as Mosaic and Halliburton.
HOW MIGHT A STRENGTHENING dollar affect the stock market? It's probably too early to start picking winners, particularly since some of the likely beneficiaries, like financial-services companies, are facing other, more serious problems than a weak dollar. But energy, technology and capital-goods companies that earn a big chunk of their revenue abroad -- and whose stocks have run up since August -- could give back some of their gains.
Commodity stocks would get hit hardest, since a dollar rebound will hurt both commodity prices and these companies' foreign earnings, says Abhijit Chakrabortti, Morgan Stanley's chief global equity strategist. Industrials will suffer, but to a lesser extent, since "lower commodity costs will offer some margin relief even as these companies' foreign sales take a hit."
Barron's asked the analysts at Bespoke Investment Group, which does customized research, to screen the Russell 1000 for stocks with more than $10 billion in market value and a big clutch of foreign profits, that have run up the most since the dollar's recent slide began. These shares, including names like Apache (APA), Freeport-McMoran (FCX), Southern Copper (PCU) and Bunge (BG), presumably have the most to lose with a rebounding dollar. They're worth keeping an eye on to see how they react.

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