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Pre-market futures pointed higher and the S&P 500 obligingly rose at the open. Friday morning's Michigan Consumer Sentiment surprised to the upside, and the Conference Board's Leading Economic Index also rose more than expected. The index didn't initially react to these reports. But around 2 PM, when the index was up about 0.49%, the buyers took charge and lifted the 500 to its closing gain of 0.95% for the

Here are some wild stats about the current rally in the S&P 500 in 2013 which brings the gains to 17%+: Of the twenty weeks this year, just four have been negative weeks. Of the four negative weeks just one has included a loss over 2%. Of the four negative weeks just two of them included losses over 1%. There have been zero 4%+ corrections this year. The S&P 500 has gained about 0.18% on average per day year to date. The S&P 500 has

Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX): Current price $123.29 Because of the refinery fire in August 2012, the city of Richmond, California, is getting ‘lawyered up’ against Chevron, according to the Contra Costa Times.  Richmond prefers the San Francisco-based Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, which is the same law firm that represented San Bruno residents in a suit against Pacific Gas & Electric for a gas-line rupture and explosion back in 2010. In late March, Cotchett Pitre also filed a class-action lawsuit against Chevron and Chevron units, claiming that the company defrauded royalties owners, says the firm’s website. In April, Chevron announced that the fire-damaged refinery would be fully restored in the second quarter. YPF says that Chevron will become the first top oil company to partner with it to develop shale oil with a final agreement expected for July. Chief Executive Miguel Galuccio of YPF, and Chevron’s chief of Latin America, Middle East, and Africa Ali Moshiri visited the Patagonia shale formation Tuesday and met with Neuquen’s governor Jorge Sapag, according to an e-mailed statement from YPF. On Thursday, the former Ecuadorian judge Zambrano, who signed off on a $19 billion environmental judgment against Chevron in February 2011 did not show up to testify as to whether he actually wrote it. The judge’s failure to appear at a deposition, which was set to occur in Lima, will probably taint the judgment’s perceived legitimacy in the opinions of United States judges and theoretically that of other judges around the world. Chevron attorney Andrea Neuman commented in an email that, “Given the unchallenged evidence proving he let the Ecuadorian plaintiffs write their own $19 billion judgment. Judge Zambrano’s refusal to testify is more predictable than surprising. The other members of the plaintiffs fraud team — [lead Ecuadorian lawyer] Pablo Fajardo and [community liaison] Luis Yanza — have likewise refused to testify on behalf of their clients or their ‘judgment.” NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE:XOM): Current price $91.76 A filing from federal regulators indicates that the restrictions on Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus crude oil pipeline, which has been shut since March 29 following a spill, remain in place after the firm requested changes in a hearing held on May 2. Exxon advised the United States Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration that a 211-mile southern section of the pipeline posed less risk since it was constructed more recently than the northern portion that spilled some 5,000 barrels of oil near Mayflower, Arkansas. However, the regulators noted at the hearing that the newer section, constructed in 1954, had a seam failure during a prior hydrostatic test. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Dual cash flow, accruals and capital productivity analysis* of consumer electronic retailer Best Buy (BBY) indicates its share price may be significantly overvalued at current levels.Additionally, deteriorating returns on equity, assets and invested capital (as revealed in the chart below) suggest potential for increased cash-burn rates and possible risk to dividend safety. Highlights of our BBY financial statement analysis are presented below.BBY Return on Assets data by YCharts Cash flow Dual cash flow analysis of BBY reveals several bearish observations (based on a rolling five quarter period study). Operating cash flow (OCF) as a percent of sales remains negative (bearish) Balance sheet cash flow (BSCF) as percentage of sales remains positive (bearish) One advantage to dual cash flow analysis as a predictive tool is in how the numbers are viewed. Unlike traditional cash flow methods, "dual cash flow" compares changes in reported shareholder equity and retained earnings

This column originally appeared exclusively first for Stock Investor Cheat Sheet premium subscribers on February 13th and has been updated to reflect current data changes. With shares of WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ:WBMD) trading at around $29.72, is WBMD an OUTPERFORM, WAIT AND SEE or STAY AWAY? Let’s analyze the stock with the relevant sections of our CHEAT SHEET investing framework: C = Catalyst for the Stock’s Movement WebMD is making some changes, and these changes are likely for the better. It’s apparent that CEO Cavan M. Redmond wasn’t the ideal leader. According to Glassdoor.com, employees rated their employer a 2.6 of 5. Only 36 percent of employees would recommend the company to a friend, and only 22 percent of employees approved of Cavan M. Redmond. The Board of Directors has appointed David J. Schlanger to serve as Interim Chief Executive Officer. Martin J. Wygod, Chairman of WebMD, said, “The change announced today will best position us to build on the momentum that our senior management team has created to date. Under David’s leadership, we will accelerate the development and implementation of strategies to diversify our revenue base and capture the opportunities arising from the rapidly changing healthcare landscape.” All that said, Cavan M. Redmond must have done something right. In Q1, webmd.com averaged 132 million unique users per month, which was a 23 percent increase year-over-year. Regardless, company culture must be strong in order to achieve optimal results. Therefore, a change was necessary. WebMD recently beat Q1 expectations and raised guidance. The company reported a loss of three cents per share whereas analysts expected a loss of 15 cents per share. Revenue also beat expectations by 5 percent. In regards to guidance, WebMD raised full-year expectations to -$0.26 to -$0.03. Analysts expected a loss of 30 cents per share. The raised guidance is mostly related to an improved outlook in the public portal advertising business. WebMD expects FY2013 revenue to come in between $450 million and $470 million, which is at best flat compared to 2012. For the current quarter, WebMD expects revenue to exceed $115 million. This would be a significant improvement on a year-over-year as well as sequential basis. WebMD offers four services: WebMD Consumer Network, WebMD Professional Network, WebMD Private Portal Services, and WebMD Publishing Services. WebMD Consumer Network consists of WebMD.com, MedicineNet.com, eMedicineHealth.com, and RxList.com. Through these sites, WebMD helps people take an active role in managing their health and wellness via timely written and video content provided by medical writers, physicians, and health educators. This is an interactive service. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! WebMD Professional Network consists of Medscape.com and theheart.org. This service offers continuous education and training for professionals. The goal of the service is to increase clinical knowledge, provide important medical opinions, and to report medical findings and the latest treatments. This service also includes WebMD Direct Services, which consists of a proprietary database of physicians and offers physician engagement solutions, targeted recruitment, and online distribution and delivery. WebMD Portal Services is designed to offer employers and health plan members more informed decisions in regards to benefits, treatments, and providers. Members have an opportunity to access personal health information, which can help aid these decisions. This service also includes health risk assessments, lifestyle education, health coaching, and pertinent information regarding cost and quality of healthcare. The ultimate goals are to use the information to determine the best provider, and to estimate costs of future treatments and procedures. WebMD Publishing Services publishes WebMD the Magazine, which can

Part 1: Daily Breakdown Here in Part 1 we do a brief day by day analysis of key market movers, which serves as a basis for the conclusions and lessons presented in Part 2. If you need to review the key market drivers from last week, here's where to start.Monday: China Data, Speculation On End of QE Outweigh Good US Retail DataAsian indexes closed mixed, but the Nikkei continued to power higher to a 5.5 year high, approaching 15,000, as the weakening JPY drove exporters higher, and the rising Nikkei lifted brokerage firms. Chinese indexes fell on a batch of overall underperforming data on industrial production and fixed asset investment - significant figures for a manufacturing and export based economy.European indexes were also mixed with modest moves in either direction, but Spain was down hard. Concerns about ongoing banking sector problems weighed on bank stocks. Some negative

Surveying the latest stock transactions of billionaire George Soros, observers would have to surmise tech stocks are in and financial stocks — not to mention some industrials — are out. Soros went even bigger on Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) and bought into Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) and LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), according to filings detailing his fund’s activity. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Soros’s buying and selling activity is always of note, and he proved yet again he’s into Google for the long term. For a stock that continues growing, Google has the distinct advantage in that employees believe the company is going to continue innovating. Google topped the lit of companies with the “Best Business Outlook in the Next 6 Months,” a survey taken by Glassdoor.com. Perhaps not coindientally, Qualcomm came in second on the same list. The introduction of LinkedIn and Netflix to the Soros portfolio marks a substantial increase in the billionaire’s tech holdings. All told, the technology sector constitutes over 16 percent of Soros’s portfolio while the number of financial services stocks slipped to just 2.3 percent. The Soros fund sold holdings in Citigroup (NYSE:C) and AIG (NYSE:AIG), along with its entire holdings of General Motors (NYSE:GM). Soros proved he’s not finished with the manufacturing sector, as he bought shares of Boeing (NYSE:BA) for the first time. The company’s recent maneuvering through the Dreamliner problems — not to mention its increased production pace — have been attracting investors from all sides. Soros is on board with a company that has its aircraft production schedule booked until nearly the end of the decade and has only one major competitor worldwide. Viking Global recently bought over 12 million shares of Boeing. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Surveying Soros’s other notable buys, LinkedIn has continued its run as the best performing social media stock. In contrast to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), LinkedIn has found a way to grow revenue without total dependence on advertising. The company survived the recession and its job-centric focus, and now LinkedIn could be the vehicle for job seekers to upgrade positions as they grow comfortable with the site. Don’t Miss: What is Warren Buffett Buying and Selling? Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

As many Americans know, the public services and layers of infrastructure that contribute to their quality of life — from federally built and maintained highways to the hot lunches provided to school-age children — are the results of federal tax dollars. But what many Americans may not realize is that the workers who provide those public services that have become a standard feature of modern life earn barely enough to afford essentials like food, health care, utilities, and rent. Tax dollars may fuel the economy, but they can also exacerbate inequality. On Friday, President Barack Obama left Washington for Baltimore, the second stop on his “Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tour,” aimed at focusing attention to his efforts to improve the lives of middle class Americans. “I know it can seem frustrating sometimes when it seems like Washington’s priorities aren’t the same as your priorities,” NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-visits-baltimore-tries-to-turn-focus-to-efforts-to-help-middle-class/2013/05/17/09e04e3c-bf10-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html” target=”_blank”>Obama told an audience at a facility of the dredging manufacturer Ellicott Dredges. “Others may get distracted by chasing every fleeting issue that passes by. But the middle class will always be my number one focus, period. Your jobs, your families, your communities, that’s why I ran for president.” Hard facts show a fairly grim picture of the employment situation in America. “We find that nearly two million private sector employees working on behalf of America earn wages too low to support a family, making $12 or less per hour. This is more than the number of low-wage workers at Walmart and McDonalds combined,” noted a recent report from Demos, a research and policy center focused on economic stability. At the very least, argued the organization, the American government owes employees on its payroll a livable wage. Demos defines low-wage work as “a job paying $12 an hour or less, equivalent to an annual income of about $24,000 for a full-time worker. Nationwide, a family of four trying to subsist on $24,000 a year hovers near the poverty level. Even a single worker with no dependents would find no room in a basic budget for health coverage, a retirement nest egg, or building emergency savings.” But its not just the private sector employees working on behalf of America that are suffering from lowing paying jobs. While unemployment has been very slowly ticking downward — in the most-recent Employment Situation report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the U.S. economy added enough jobs in April to pull the unemployment rate to 7.5 percent — the declining headline unemployment rate masks some concerning trends that betray overall weakness and inequality in the labor market. The National Employment Law Project showed that while low-wage occupations accounted for 21 percent of recession-era job losses, they accounted for 58 percent of recovery job gains — and while mid-wage occupations accounted for 60 percent of recession losses, they accounted for just 22 percent of recovery growth. What this means is that post-recession job growth is characterized by Americans taking lower-paying jobs, moving out of the middle class and into the lower class. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! This data highlights the growing economic divide between working families at the top and the bottom of the economic ladder. Income inequality has increased steadily in the United States even as the stock market has recovered most of its losses and corporate profits have soared. Yet, for an increasing number of working families economic security is out reach. In the years between 2007 and 2011, the s

Questions about working conditions at longtime Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) supplier Foxconn are being raised once again as reports emerge of three worker suicides in the last three weeks. Non-profit organization China Labor Watch announced news of the worker deaths in a press release on Friday. According to China Labor Watch, all of the suicides occurred at Foxconn’s factory in the central city of Zhengzhou. On April 24, a 24-year old male worker who had only been working at the factory for two days jumped to his death off a dormitory building. On April 27, a 23-year old female worker jumped off the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Is Apple now a once-in-a-decade buying opportunity? Click here to get your 24-page Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Apple’s Stock now! The latest suicide was a married 30-year old male who jumped off a building on May 14. He had worked at the factory for approximately three weeks. Although these suicides may be related to poor working conditions in Foxconn’s factory, there could also be unrelated causes. China Labor Watch speculates that the recent suicides may be related to a new Foxconn “silence mode” policy that dictates that workers who talk on the job will be terminated. However, China Labor Watch also reports that the latest suicide may have been related to “relationship problems.” Apple joined the Washington-based Fair Labor Association after 13 documented Foxconn employee suicides in 2010. The FLA recently said that Foxconn had resolved almost all of its factory safety and worker condition problems, although the Taiwan-based manufacturer is still having difficulty in reducing its workers’ weekly hours. NEW! Discover a new stock idea each week for less than the cost of 1 trade. CLICK HERE for your Weekly Stock Cheat Sheets NOW! Besides making Apple’s iPad and iPhone products, Foxconn also assembles products for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Sony (NYSE:SNE), and Nokia (NYSE:NOK). Here’s how Apple has traded over the past week. Follow Nathanael on Twitter (@ArnoldEtan_WSCS) Don’t Miss: This Apple Supplier Is Still Messing Up Labor Practices. Read the original article from Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) announces earnings on Friday, May 24, 2013 before the market opens. This is a little scary for option traders because the weekly options will be in play for only one day before they expire.ANF describes itself as a specialty retailer of casual apparel for men, women, and kids (although I could never figure out how you can specialize in all three at the same time). Market cap $4.24B and most recent closing price $54.24. Trailing P/E 19 which is slightly higher than competitors American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) and The Gap (GPS) who have a P/E of 17.Institutional investors have sold nearly 34 million shares over the last quarter (source: Yahoo) which amounts to about 44% of the outstanding shares. While this is a disquieting statistic, the company pays a well-protected 1.5% dividend (payout ratio only 25%) which helps protect against a huge drop