Tech stocks technically.

I wrote this week that I expect rebound for Divx (DIVX). Today stock were off 10% (25% in last 5 days!!!) but nevertheless price turned over and closed by +0,41%. This rebound has formed technical hammer candlestick. I see this as beginning of short term reverse.

Another tech company which I am watching closely is Google (GOOG). Recent selling pressure sent shares to valuation which is very attractive in comparison to growth prospects. Even broad sell 0ff on US markets didn't affect Google too much and stocks closed only with -0,89% change.

OmniVison Technology (OVTI) was leading nice gains this week after company released strong quarter results. Technically OmniVison reached strong support zone at $12 and created already third bottom during last 3 years (attached chart). Better than expected results lifted also some semiconductor producers like Micron Technology (MU). Micron lost around 40% in 2007 but there are already sings of rebound for 2008. Stocks are +3,72% YTD.

Related tickers: (QQQQ), (SMH), (XSD), (USD), (IGW), (PSI), (SSG)

Divx still in down trend.

IPO of 2006 is not in favour of traders at all. 2 months after issue of shares the company is in downtrend up to now.

Divx (DIVX) is shutting down Stage6. This negative news has been dragging shares to new low. Shares were testing the most recent low formed on November 07 and this support has been broken. Recent daily volumes exceed average. Let's see where will be short term low. I expect bounce in near future as shares are traded close to strong support line.

Earnings call is scheduled on 11 March.

Free offline RSS reader.

I've been searching some good RSS reader for feed which works also offline. Basically majority of aggregators are web-based. But if your are often without net connection it's worth to use some which is downloading feeds update automatically. And then you can enjoy offline reading. I found several discussions and recommendations but generally it is not so easy to find good one. Listed below are the best what I've found.

- Omea Reader
- RSS Bandit
- News Gator - can even integrates your feed into MS Outlook
- Combination of Google Reader and Google Gear
- NewsMonster
- GreatNews

I chose RSS Bandit. It's pretty easy to navigate and also has different timing for automatic update for different feed and other functionality.

Leaders and laggards among ADR.

Most of world indices are in negative on year to date 2008. Let's have a look at international stocks listed on US markets which are beating performance and also stocks that are below. Statistics show two emerging markets from BRIC. But with opposite performance.

Measured by Bank of New York ADR indices leaders are:

Brazil ADR Index 6.54%
Mexico ADR Index 3.63%

Brazil ADR Index main constituents: COMPANHIA VALE A (RIO), ISHARE MSCI BRAZ (EWZ), PETROLEO BRASILE (PBR), BANCO BRADESCO A (BBD), COMPANHIA SIDER (SID), VIVO PARTICIPACO (VIV)
Mexico ADR Index main constituents: TELVISA SA (TV), CEMEX SAB DE CV (CX), ISHARE MSCI Mexico (EWW),TELEFONOS DE MEX (TMX), FOMENTO ECONOMIC (FMX), DESARROLLADORA H (HMX), MEXICO FUND INC (MXF)

And laggards:

China ADR Index -14.15%
German ADR Index -11.43%

China ADR Index main constituents: BAIDU (BIDU), SUNTECH POWER HL (STP), JA SOLAR HOLDING (JASO),LDK SOLAR CO ADR (LDK), CHINA TECHFAITH (CNTF), ISHARE MSCI Hong Kong (EWH), ISHARES TR FTSE (FXI)
German ADR Index main constituents: QIMONDA AG ADS (QI), ISHARE MSCI Germany (EWG), ALLIANZ SE (AZ), SAP AKTIENGESELL (SAP), DAIMLER AG (DAI), INFINEON TECH AD (IFX), DEUTSCHE TELE AG (DT)

Overall the worst performance since the beginning of the year is for European ADR ($BKEUR) with almost -8%. That's even below S&P 500. Others are above where the best Latin America ADR Index ($BKLA) 6% in positive YTD.

Technical analysis - triangle pattern.

Broad US indices are shaping neutral technical pattern which should end up this week. Friday's late buying power formed 5 point with higher volume hammer.

This week brings key economic data which in my view reveal direction for shares from mid term perspective. I'll be mainly watching PPI, GDP, home sales statistics and consumer confidence.

Not so many influential earning reports are scheduled. The most interesting could be Home Depot (HD), Blackstone (BX) or AIG (AIG). However this week I see main power for movement in economic data.


Related tickers: (QQQQ), (SPY), (DIA)

Business Week. Key economic reports.

Monday
Economic: Existing Home Sales (4.8M)
Earnings: FirstEnergy (FE), Lowe’s (LOW), LDK Solar (LDK), Nordstrom (JWN), Shanda (SNDA), USEC (USU), Wilson Greatbatch (GB)

Tuesday
Economic: PPI & Core (.3%, .2%), Consumer Confidence (82.5), S&P/Case-Shiller (-9.8%)
Earnings: AutoZone (AZO), CBRL (CBRL), Ceradyne (CRDN), Frontier Oil (FTO), Home Depot (HD), KBR (KBR), Macy’s (M), RadioShack (RSH), Target (TGT), Autodesk (ADSK), Covanta (CVA), Stone Energy (SGY), Overseas Ship (OSG), Ormat (ORA)

Wednesday
Economic: Durable Orders (-4.0%), New Home Sales (600K), Weekly Crude

Earnings: Boyd (BYD), LifeCell (LIFC), Lamar (LAMR), SPX (SPW), Toll Bros (TOL), Ctrip (CTRP), General Maritime (GMR), GMarket (GMKT), Limited (LTD), Salesforce (CRM), Public Storage (PSA), Tenaris (TS), Whiting Petrol (WLL)

Thursday
Economic: GDP & Deflator (.8%, 2.6%), Weekly Claims (350K)
Earnings: AmBev (ABV), Blackstone (BX), Cooper (CTB), Fluor (FLR), GrafTech (GTI), Hansen (HANS), Leap Wire (LEAP), Sears (SHLD), Sprint (S), AIG (AIG), Buenaventura (BVN), China Finance (JRJC), China Med (CMED), CVR (RIO), Dell (DELL), FTI (FCN), Scientific Games (SGMS), Ventana (VMSI), World Fuel (INT)

Friday
Economic: Inc & Spend (.2%, .2%), Core PCE (.2%), Chicago (50), Michigan (70)
Earnings: Mine Safety (MSA), Sepracor (SEPR)

Large Caps Growth stocks.

Below listed stocks are selected based on predefined parameters. Fundamental analysis screen for growth stocks with large capitalization.
Market capitalization at least 5 bln. USD, P/E ration below 20, earnings growth past 5 years at least 30% and future growth again above 30%.

Company	Market Cap. (in mil of $)	Earnings growth past 5 years (%)	P/E ratio (trailing 12 months)	Projected earn. growth, next year
Noble Corp Cayman Islands (NE)	$12916	38%	12	75%
Pioneer Ntl Res (PXD)	$5274	41%	14	41%
ENSCO Internat Inc. (ESV)	$8163	70%	9	40%
Manitowoc Co Inc (MTW)	$5114	108%	15	33%
National Oilwell Varco Inc. (NOV)	$22752	55%	17	33%
Newfield Exploratn (NFX)	$6537	34%	15	32%
Nabors Industries Ltd (NBR)	$8651	59%	9	31%

4 Ways that Online Terrorists are Impacting Your Portfolio.

The threat of online terrorism has become a reality in the increasingly digitized world of high finance. The US economy has become more and more reliant on computerized functionality, as has the global economy to a certain extent. Moreover, companies that conduct the bulk of their business online have become major players in a variety of financial venues. A physical storefront on Main Street is no longer a prerequisite for starting a new business, but a virtual storefront has become a necessity.



As more people look to the web to purchase goods and procure services, an ever-increasing amount of money is being poured into digital ventures. Real money is put into the creation of these enterprises and real money is being made by them. It is inevitable, then, that terrorism has followed this widening cash trail into the virtual world. Online terrorism has increased exponentially in recent years and has started to have a real affect not only on individual business, but on entire industry sectors and financial markets. It is important to be aware of the impact that cyber-terrorism can have on the economy. Learn about these four effects of online terrorism and maybe you’ll be able to prevent them from terrorizing your wallet.

1. Threats to trade secrets and intellectual property: Online terrorists have already made a number of sophisticated attempts to gain access to trade secrets and intellectual property in a variety of industries. While they have not always been successful, the threat is very real and is only getting worse. Almost every IP - laden industry relies upon the security of its confidential information to gain stronger footholds in the market, and any breach in this defense can result in huge losses. As online terrorists become increasingly adept at accessing privileged data, companies become less willing to risk huge sums of money on research and development that might only end up benefiting the enterprise with the best hackers.

2. The prevalence of pirated software: In 2004 alone, software companies experienced a loss in revenue of over 30 billion dollars due to pirated software. In this day and age, it is far too easy to find cracked versions of software online, often for free or at a severely discounted price. This cuts into the profits of software producers and again reduces the push for innovation. Moreover, the prevalence of software pirating has made this entire sector a questionable investment, hurting publicly traded software companies and those who invest in them.

3. E-commerce sites closing their doors: As huge portions of the economy now operate entirely in the virtual world, the market has become increasingly vulnerable to online terrorism attacks. Sites such as Amazon, Buy.com, and eBay conduct millions of transactions every day and are responsible for massive amounts of money changing hands. Therefore, these sites have become popular targets for cyber terrorists. Coordinated attacks on such sites could cause these industries to shut down and retool, causing inconvenience for consumers and staggering financial losses for the companies involved. Even if just a handful of these websites were shut down for even one day, it could result in billions of dollars in lost revenue. These damages would not only be felt by the businesses directly involved, but would be felt throughout the worldwide economy.

4. Direct cyber attacks on financial markets: In December of 2006, al Qaeda moved into the digital world. In their statement, al Qaeda called for denial of service attacks on a variety of financial web sites, including sites that allow for online stock trading. Fortunately, the threat itself had little immediate effect on the markets. However, if such actions were eventually carried out, it would wreak havoc on the way stocks are traded. Financial organizations and individual investors could be devastated by such a move. Trade brokers and consumer banks would not only experience outages and lose important data, but more importantly, any trust that they had earned from their customers might be lost forever.

Related tickers: (AMZN), (EBAY), (XLF), (IYF), (SPY), (QQQQ), (DIA), (CGI)

By-line:
Heather Johnson is a freelance finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor for CurrencyTrading.net, a site for currency trading and forex trading information. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

Free fundamental stock screeners and scans.

I'd like to publish several stock screeners which are free of charge (for all bold marked tools you can find link on the left under Stock screener section).

Let me start with my favourite one which is provided by Finance Yahoo. Basically Yahoo offers two kind of screening based on funadamental analysis. The first one is Basic Yahoo screener (HTML version) allowing to sort shares according to major indicators like P/E, P/B, PEG, Div Yield, estimated EPS etc.

Advanced Yahoo screener is adding more detailed view with RoA, RoE, insiders and institutions held and much more. You can find several preset screens for value or growth for small, mid or large caps. This screener is Java based. And in my view the best one which is for free.

MSN screener has only basic indicators without numeric range. Possible value is either "low" or "high". Except of this you can try also MSN Stock power searches which has preset indicators and is far better.

Another free tools are from Mornigstar like Stock Selector, ETF or Fund screener. Morningstar Stock selector is flavoured with stock grades but it doesn't have so much advanced functionality like one fromYahoo.

Nice tool, NASDAQ Stock screener, can be found on official NASDAQ page allowing to scan major US stock markets.

Business Week. Retailers earnings.

Tuesday:
Economic: NA

Earnings: Fossil (FOSL), Marvel (MVL), Holly (HOC), Wal-Mart (WMT), OfficeMax (OMX), RTI Metals (RTI), Crocs (CROX), Hewlett (HPQ), Nutrisystem (NTRI), Ultra P (UPL), Whole Foods (WFMI)

Wednesday:
Economic: CPI & Core (.3%, .2%), Housing Starts & Permits (1.0M, 1.03M), Weekly Crude, FOMC Minutes

Earnings: Garmin (GRMN), Jack In Box (JBX), Suntech (STP), Transocean (RIG), Agnico Mines (AEM)

Analog Devices (ADI), Itron (ITRI), Sina (SINA), Ocean’ Intl (OII), Teekay (TK), Verigy (VRGY), Terex (TEX)

Thursday:
Economic: Weekly Claims (355K), Leading Indicators (-.1%), Philly Fed (-10.0)

Earnings: Barrick (ABX), Blue Coat (BCSI), JC Penney (JCP), MGM (MGM), Newmont (NEM), Quest (DGX), Patterson (PDCO), Zale (ZLC), Cbeyond (CBEY), Cleveland Cliffs (CLF), Investools (SWIM), Hecla (HL), VCA Antech (WOOF)


Friday:
Economic: NA
Earnings: LT Fitness (LTM), PG&E (PCG)

GDP growth in Czech Republic for 2007.

GDP grew by 6,9% in last quarter of 2007. For the whole year 2007 change is 6,6% up. Numbers are above analyst estimations which varied between 6,3 - 6,5 %. Improvement was dragged by higher employment (on year to year basis 1,9 % more employed people). Big impact has public health insurance reform. Extraordinary stimulus came from health insurance groups due to higher expenses. This contributed for GDP increase by 0,5%.
Leading industries were energy, manufacturing industry.

Amazing GDP growth by more that 14%..?

This is not GDP growth in China but in Slovakia. Today's released number left all expectations behind. On average analyst expectations range 8,9 - 9,4 %. Real GDP number in Slovakia is 14,1%, growth faster than in China. Mainly supported by higher industrial production, consumers spending. In addition, changes in taxation forced retailers stored up level of stock.

Technical analysis for index PX.

Global sentiment has turned to optimistic after Warren Buffet offered to help of 800 bln. USD. This has influenced also trading on Prague Stock Exchange. Attached chart shows technical picture for Czech index PX. It visible that index is traded in growing channel. Recent price is reaching upper resistance line. If there are not any strong fundamental news we can expect price to consolidate and turn down.





Technical signal is also confirmed by Fibonacci support line 23,6 for level 1490.

New ETFs specialty.

Van Eck Global launched new specialty ETFs in Market Vector group. After several municipal bonds ETF there are 2 really unique exchange traded funds.

Gaming ETF (BJK)
This investment is following up S-Network Global Gaming Index covering 69 worldwide companies from gaming industry. Industry segments are casino and race track operations, horse race and sport betting. Major Index constituents are International Game Technology (IGT)11,6%, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) 7,6%, MGM Mirage (MGM) 7,1%, Wynn Resorts Ltd (WYNN) 5,4%. Country breakdown: United States 43%, Australia 15%, Malaysia 9%.

Coal ETF (KOL)
This ETF returns performance of Stowe Coal Index which consists of 60 companies from coal industry. Again it is with worldwide exposure. Major Index constituents are BUMI Resources 9,5%, CONSOL Energy Inc. (CNX) 9,1%, Peabody Energy (BTU) 7,23%, Arch Coal (ACI) 5,7%, Joy Global Inc. (JOYG) 4,7%, Bucyrus International Inc. (BUCY) 4,4%, Massey Energy Company (MEE) 2,5%. Country breakdown: United States 40%, Hong Kong 24%, Indonesia 11%.

Badge for Forbes Financial Blog Network.

I already wrote about bloggers network associated by Forbes. Business and Financial Blog Network is planned to be launched at the beginning of year 2008.

There are basically two benefits coming from this partnership. First, some of your posts / articles can be published on Forbes page which lead for higher readership. Second, you will be involved in Forbes advertising program.

Requirements for participation are:

- to have business or finance related blog
- to run two banners ads on your blog (728x90 Leaderboard and 160x600 Skyscraper or 300x250 Rectangle)

All ads management is done via online acount at Adify. Pricing is based on eCPM (effective CPM). Blogger receives 40% of all net revenues collected by Forbes.
Next thing to point out is that as a member of this network you will place Forbes badge to denote membership. Badges are available in 3 variants.

Municipal bonds (Munis) as a ETF.

This rainy season is attracting attention to municipal bonds from several reasons. FED is cutting interest rates which boosting bond prices. If Democrats win Presidential election, most probably they enhance muni's tax advantages. Apart from, single A rated munis are having 80 times lower historical default rate (0.0084) than triple triple AAA corporate bonds. Merrill Lynch municipal index has in 2007 3,29% return which is less than half of average return during last 19 years. On the other side, faith in triple A munis was hit by CDO losses at Ambac (ABK) and MBIA (MBI).

Municipal bonds can be bought indirectly via fund or ETF. Among funds I'd point out Oppenheimer Rochester National Municipals (ORNAX) and less aggressive Legg Mason Partners Managed Municipals (SHMMX).
This segment is just developing among ETF issuers. Van Eck Global issued on Janaury couple of ETF underlying municipal bonds like:

Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Intermediate Municipal Index ETF (ITM)
Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Long Municipal Index ETF (MLN)
Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Intermediate Municipal Index ETF (ITM)
Lehman Brothers AMT-Free Long Municipal Index ETF (MLN)

Business Week. General Motors and PetroChina.

Monday
Economic: NA
Earnings: Carlisle (CSL), CNA (CNA), LCA Vision (LCAV), Valspar (VAL), American S & E (ASEI), Fording Coal (FDG), Charles River (CRL), Qiagen (QGEN), Veeco (VECO), Vertex (VRTX)

Tuesday
Economic: Treasury Budget ($30.0B)
Earnings: General Motors (GM), Marsh McLennan (MMC), Qwest (Q), Schering (SGP), XTO Energy

(XTO), Teva (TEVA), Blue Nile (NILE), Cephalon (CEPH), General Cable (BGC), Panera (PNRA), Sigma Aldrich (SIAL), Watts (WTS), Wynn (WYNN)

Wednesday:
Economic: Retail / ex Auto (0.00%, .2%), Biz’ Inv’s (.4%), Weekly crude
Earnings: Agrium (AGU), Daktronics (DAKT), Deere (DE), First Solar (FSLR), PetroChina (PTR),

PF Chang’s (PFCB), Rio Tinto (RTP), Waste Mgt (WMI), Agilent (A), Baidu (BIDU), Core Labs (CLB), Network Apps (NTAP), NVIDIA (NVDA), Skechers (SKX), ValueClick (VCLK)

Thursday
Economic: Weekly Claims (360K), Trade Balance (-$61B)
Earnings: Daimler (DAI), Foundation Coal (FCL), FTI (FCN), Gol Air (GOL), Goodyear (GT), Ingersoll (IR), TASER (TASR), Trina (TSL), Brocade (BRCD), Bucyrus (BUCY), Chipotle (CMG), FMC Tech (FTI), Priceline (PCLN)

Friday
Economic: Import / Export, Empire (7.5), Industrial Production & Cap Util (.1%, 81.4%), Michigan (76.5)
Earnings: Abercrombie (ANF), Barnes (B), Campbell (CPB), Diana Ship (DSX), Yingli Green (YGE)

Yahoo launched Tech Ticker.

On 7th February Yahoo (YHOO) officially launched new section at Finance page. Section is called Tech Ticker. Site will cover daily text and video news from the world of technology.
In addition to news you can find information about venture capital, M&A and IPOs. Also product and trends in technology.

Stay tuned with the sector that is forming new economy.

Global stocks listed on local stock exchange.

This week Prague Stock Exchange welcomed two companies from abroad. First is from Austria, Vienna Insurance Group which is traded in main segment SPAD. Next emission is on second (electronic) market RM-SYSTEM. This time is coming from Finland, it is Nokia (NOK). After Deutsche Bank AG (DB), Nokia is second foreign stock listed on electronic exchange. Share prices are converted to Czech Koruna CZK.
The intention for listing foreign stocks on electronic market and lowering trading commissions helped to increase trading volume on RM-SYSTEM and reached record turnover in 2007. Secondary market has enough liquidity now and it is right place to be for small and mid size investors.

Top performing stock markets in 2007.

Let's have a look at leading stock market indexes in 2007. Two hot emerging markets are missing among top 10. Commodities driven Lima Stock Exchange index IGBVL in Peru and Viet Nam Stock Exchange VN index. Especially Vietnamese index had nice bull run in 2006 since Vietnam entered World Trade Organization.
Winner for 2007 is China CSI 300 even thought early on spring 2007 there was global sell of triggered just by China. About Ukraine I wrote in previous post. Index is mainly composed of large caps compared to others indices in emerging markets. Main topics for Slovenian market were Euro adoption and government pension funds fuelling equity market. In Bangladesh investors were attracted by government pledge to sell state enterprises.

China CSI 300 index 179.75%
Ukranian PFTS index 135.41%
Slovenia total market 96.90%
Nigeria stock exchange 87.17%
Bangladesh DHAKA stock 86.19%
Croatia Zagreb crobex 80.84%
Brazil Bovespa stock index 72.44%
Istanbul ISE national 100 index 71.91%
African Mauritius stock exchange 70.00%
Bombay BSE sensex 30 index 65.23%

Business Week. Cisco and Disney.

Monday
Economic: Factory Orders (2.0%)
Earnings: Archer Dan (ADM), Clorox (CLX), Humana (HUM), Illumina (ILMN), Rambus (RMBS), LV Sands (LVS), YUM Brands (YUM)

Tuesday
Economic: ISM Services (53)
Earnings: CME Group (CME), NYSE (NYX), Tyco (TYC), Whirlpool (WHR), Bankrate (RATE), Invitrogen (IVGN), Riverbed (RVBD), Disney (DIS), XL Capital (XL)

Wednesday
Economic: Prelim. Productivity (1.0%), Weekly Crude, Pending Home Sales, Consumer Credit (8.0B)
Earnings: Cigna (CI), InterActive (IACI), Nat Oil (NOV), Sonoco (SON), Time Warner (TWX), Akamai (AKAM), Cisco (CSCO), Fiserv (FISV), FMC (FMC), Prudential (PRU), WMS Ind (WMS)

Thursday
Economic: Weekly Claims (344K)
Earnings: Aetna (AET), AGCO (AG), Bunge (BG), FLIR (FLIR), Moody’s (MCO), Pepsi (PEP), Terra Ind (TRA), Activision (ATVI), Atwood (ATW), BMC (BMC), Cognizant (CTSH), Micro-Strategy (MSTR), Zoltek (ZOLT), Open Text (OTEX), Sina (SINA), Walter Ind (WLT)

Friday
Economic: Wholesale Inventories (.4%)
Earnings: Beacon Roof (BECN), Beckman (BEC), Brush Matls (BW), Clearwire (CLWR), Coventry (CVH), Fannie Mae (FNM), Lubrizol (LZ), Weyerhaeuser (WY)

Amazing Ukrainian stock index PFTS.

Despite of economic slowndown Ukrainian stock market index PFTS brought 135% gain at 2007. It is second best performing index after Chinese CSI 300. Outlook for 2008 is less optimistic and on average 30-40% gains are expected. The most promising sectors are metallurgical assets, energy and machine. On the other side financials are among laggards. Since 2004 market capitalization has risen 11-fold. Number of companies traded on stock market reached 335. Market could be fuelled by scheduled IPOs during 2008 escpecially large industrial groups like Metinvest, Interpipe and ISD Group.

From chart you can see that index PTFS survived January sell off very well.Risk for sustain growth could be slowing Russian economy. GDP growth in Russia for 2007 was 8% but outlook for 2008 is 6,4%.

Total writedown and credit losses due to subprime crisis.

Table below contains all write-down and credit loss for major world banks and brokerages. Up to now total amount is 146 billion USD. Report shows impact of financial crisis from the beginning 2007 till now. Numbers are including subprime and mortage writedowns, credit losses, reserves for bad mortages and loans.

Numbers are in bln USD at 31.Jan 2008. Data are purged from profits from financial hedging.

Company	Writedown	Credit loss	Total
Merrill Lynch (MER)	24,5	0	24,5
Citigroup (C)	19,6	2,5	22,1
UBS (UBS)	18,4	0	18,4
HSBC (HBC)	0,9	9,8	10,7
Morgan Stanley (MS)	9,4	0	9,4
Bank of America (BAC)	7	0,9	7,9
Washington Mutual (WM)	0,3	6,2	6,5
Credit Agricole (CRARF)	5	0	5
Wachovia (WB)	2,7	2	4,7
Société Générale (SCGLY)	3,6	0	3,6
JP Morgan Chase (JPM)	1,6	1,6	3,2
CIBC (CM)	3,2	0	3,2
Barclays (BCS)	2,7	0	2,7
Bear Stearns (BSC)	2,6	0	2,6
Mizuho Finacial (MFG)	2,6	0	2,6
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)	2,5	0	2,5
Deutsche Bank (DB)	2,3	0	2,3
West LB	2	0	2
Wells Fargo (WFC)	0,3	1,4	1,7
Lehman Brothers (LEH)	1,5	0	1,5
National City (NCC)	0,4	1	1,4
BNP Paribas (BNP)	0,9	0,2	1,1
Credit Suisse (CS)	1	0	1
Nomura Hldgs. (NMR)	1	0	1
other Asian banks	2,5	0,6	3,1
other Canadian banks	1,5	0,1	1,6

January effect.

Year-end effect got new dimension this year. Year-to-year (2007) performance for main Czech stock market index PX50 is 14%. But in January 2008 index lost 17%. One of the biggest drop among emerging stock markets. This was the worst January in 15 years. During last days of January trading volume was daily 8 times bigger than on average.

If we look at the losses for respective shares; ECM -35%, AAA Auto -33%, Erste Bank -30%, CETV -24%, Orco -21%, Unipetrol -15%, Komercni Banka -14%, CEZ -13%.
First month of 2008 Czech Stock Exchange has entered "Bear" market. Also like other European stock markets.

Zentiva leading stock market.

Today in Prague Zentiva gained more than 8% and ended up the week 20% higher. Shares went all that way down after two disappointing quarters. But obviously buyers found the way back. Positively is seen share increase from investment group PPF up to 19,1%. Major shareholder is still Sanofi Aventis (SNY) with 24,9%.

Also Erste Bank grew up sharply by 5%. But there is potential risk for subsidiary company in Romania, BCR. Depreciation of Romanian Leu against Euro could negatively affect redemption of Euro loans. From 14th of February Erste Bank shares will listed also on Bucarest Stock Exchange. Another today's leader. Central European Media (CETV) finished trading session 7% higher.