“The GE earnings miss and guidance revision last week highlights how the increasingly weak macro environment can quickly sneak up on even the most diversified and well-run of industrials businesses,”

I would actually be buying calls in specific industrial names and have Honeywell (HON) and Union Pacific (UNP) calls on my book for the past 2 weeks.

if AAPL sandbagged eps the way GE has the stock would be $700 based on the fact that they constantly beet the number, GE sandbagged the analysts and their stock paid the price

General Electric (GE) reported earnings this morning, missing analysts estimates by 7 cents (44 v. 51 estimate). While an estimate miss is never great, lowering yearly estimates can be a sign of slower times. In this case, with GE being the 4th largest, multi-faceted company, any reduction in estimates can be described as a general weakening of the economy.

Another crappy day in the market as General Electric stoked concern about the health of corporate profits and the wider economy. The major indexes were at times down more than 1 percent.

I just read an interesting post by Jennifer Yousfi of MoneyMorning.com on how we can find a little protection in these turbulent markets, Conglomerates.

Excerpt from Raymond James strategist Jeffrey Saut's latest essay:

Don Dion, the publisher of the Fidelity Independent Adviser family of newsletters, pointed out the PowerShares FTSE RAFI Industrials Sector ETF (PRFN) as a potential safe haven for during this turbulent market. Not everyone has the time or the understanding of the markets to make wise investment decisions and this might be the answer for those people.

Short piece out on Reuters this morning (”Siemens to regroup international operations“) citing a German daily newspaper that Siemens is in the process of restructuring its international operations into 20 regional centers:

This is Jake Berzon of Odesskiy Listok's take on Fortune Magazines Best Best Stocks for 2008.

Annaly (NLY) – This company used to be on my watch list. It is a rather volatile stock that is in the current at-risk business (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private companies), whose stock appreciated while all of the financials depreciated – so it is bigger gamble than I am willing to take.

I thought I would share a report I found on Infectious Greed. These are the top ten stocks by dollars traded in 2007. It will be interesting to see how these compare in 2008. Will they still be heavily traded?

Symbol Company Rank Last Year Change
AAPL Apple Inc. 1 2 1