ECONOMY & MARKETS

UBS Securities upgraded PC giant Hewlett-Packard to buy from neutral, citing improving growth prospects for the majority of HP's segments through 2011.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: Interactive Intelligence, Heartware International, Apollo Group, Sears Holdings, and Telular. The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: ClickSoftware Technologies, Tuesday Morning, Glu Mobile, L & L Energy, and Cheesecake Factory.

Shares of Supervalu (NYSE: SVU) are plunging this morning after the retail grocer posted a loss for the third quarter and slashed its full year profit outlook.

Kuwait Oil Council on Monday predicted that oil barrel price to reach $110 in the next few weeks as the global economy recovers fast.

US stocks advanced in early trade on Tuesday as Alcoa kicked off the earnings season by beating forecasts, while Japan’s pledge to buy eurozone bonds eased concerns about eurozones debt.

Advanced Micro Devices said Monday its chief executive Dirk Meyer has resigned with immediate effect and appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer Thomas Seifert as interim CEO.

The companies which are expected to see active trade on Tuesday are Alcoa, Advanced Micro Devices, Lennar Corp, Supervalu, Apollo Group, Stryker, Intel and Nvid

The Greek budget deficit narrowed more than targeted last year, mainly led by a drop in government spending.

Statistics released by the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday showed the Chinese forex kitty is bursting at seams with an 18.6 percent growth in 2010 which made it zoom to a record $2.85 trillion.

The top after-market NYSE gainers on Monday are: Nautilus, KKR & Co, Stryker, Lennar and GATX. The top after-market NYSE losers on Monday are: The St. Joe Co, CBIZ, Headwaters, Advanced Micro Devices, MarkWest Energy and Alcoa.

As the European debt crisis worsens there appears to be more help coming from Asia, with Japan on Tuesday offering to buy Irish bonds coming up for sale this month.

Chip giant Intel will pay $1.5 billion to Nvidia as part of a cross licensing deal that brings an end to all of the outstanding legal disputes between the two parties.

Stocks finished mixed, following a sell-off in Europe, on worries over Portugal possibly needing a financial bailout, ahead of the kick-off of the fourth-quarter earnings season.

India is considering using gold to temporarily settle oil trades with Iran. If India were to settle crude oil trade in gold (even temporarily), it may set a precedence that will further erode the international status of the U.S. dollar and bolster the reputation of gold.

For all its dilution and exceptions, the Volcker Rule is no joke and has prompted the exodus of prop traders from big banks like Goldman Sachs.

Education-related stocks are getting hammered this morning after a prominent company in the field, Strayer Education (Nasdaq: STRA) reported a 20 percent drop in poor enrollment for its latest winter term.

In a repeat of a similar scenario from last month, thousands of Bangladeshi investors rioted on the streets of Dhaka, angry after incurring huge losses on the stock market.

BP Plc, which is tormented by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has witnessed a positive development last week when Presidential Commission did not find BP solely responsible for the oil spill.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: Conexant Systems, Dot Hill Systems, Qiao Xing Universal Resources, SunPower, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, and Genzyme. The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: Strayer Education, Apollo Group, PDL BioPharma, Rovi, and Corinthian Colleges.

Futures on major U.S. stock indices point to lower opening on Monday with futures on the S&P 500 down 0.58 percent, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.42 percent and Nasdaq100 futures down 0.40 percent.

Data showed on Monday the Chinese trade surplus narrowed in December, easing the conflict between Beijing and Washington over rising U.S. trade deficit even as Chinese President Hu Jintao is scheduled to meet President Obama in the White House on January 19.

Chinese high inflation rates are expected to continue until the second or third quarter despite the government’s efforts to tame rising prices, according to a survey of 56 leading economists.

The United States and its leaders are stuck in their own Catch 22. They need the economy to improve in order to generate jobs, but the economy can only improve if people have jobs. They need the economy to recover in order to improve our deficit situation, but if the economy really recovers long term interest rates will increase, further depressing the housing market and increasing the interest expense burden for the US.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 22.55 points, or 0.19 percent, to finish at 11.674.76. At one point the Dow was down as much as 100 points. The S&P 500 dropped 2.35 points, or 0.18 percent, to 1271.50; while the Nasdaq shed 6.72 points, or 0.25 percent, to 2703.17.

Bank shares are weakening after the Massachusetts State Supreme Judicial Court upheld a decision that two foreclosures from U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) and Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) were not valid because the banks did not properly show they held the mortgages at the time of the foreclosure.

Given how Apple shares have sailed into the stratosphere, supported by wildly successful product launches (thereby making lots of happy investors); the company is unlikely to hand out dividends for the foreseeable future.

Apple Inc.'s CEO Steve Jobs has received a salary of $1 per year since rejoining the company in 1997, a regulatory filing showed.

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent for December 2010, versus the 9.8 percent recorded in the previous month, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

India's will overtake the U.S. in forty years in terms of GDP at purchasing power parities (PPP) while China will sail past its financial and political rival as early as 2018, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) report said on Friday.