My mistake, crude options expire today.  This drop in oil prices doesn’t mean the end of a “bubble”, as I’ve heard some say.  CNBC has been all over the “is this a commodity bubble bursting?” analysis today.  One day is not a sudden trend change.  I knew there was a good reason why I wasn’t listening to them anymore.  So in this options expiration week, the market has gone from oversold to (almost) overbought in the blink of an eye.  Who can take this seriously?  Ok, besides CNBC.  But, an oversold bounce has been in the works for awhile now, so it’s not a big surprise.  I do get a headache watching mania, but that’s all right as long as I’m preserving capital and making a few bucks, too!

IBM (ibm), Microsoft (msft), Google (goog) and Merrill Lynch (mer) earnings reports are listed below.  GOOG and MSFT missed, but some analysts are encouraging a buy on dips for GOOG.

GOOG REPORTS Q2 $4.63 V $4.74E, R $3.9B (EX-TAC) V $3.87BE
- Q2 paid clicks +19 %     - Q2 international revenue $2.8B
- Had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the first quarter of 2008 through the second quarter of 2008, our revenues in the second quarter of 2008 would have been $88M lower.

MER REPORTS Q2 -$4.97 V -$1.91E, R -$2.1B V $3.26BE
- Total client assets $, % y/y
- Total U.S. CDO exposure $4.5B v $ q/q
- Q2 net write-down $
- To sell financial data services
- Had $1.7B investment portfolio losses
- Had losses of $3.5B on super sr ABS CDOs
- Had $1.3B resident mortgage exposure losses
- Had a $2.9B credit valuation adjustment negative
- Merrill Lynch completed the sale of its 20% ownership stake in Bloomberg, L.P. to Bloomberg Inc., for $4.425 billion, and as part of this transaction has entered into a long-term service agreement. Merrill Lynch is also in negotiations and has signed a non-binding letter of intent to sell a controlling interest in Financial Data Services, Inc. (FDS), based on an enterprise value for FDS in excess of $3.5 billion.<

IBM REPORTS Q2 $1.98 V $1.82E, R $26.8B V $25.92BE and has upped FY guidance

MSFT REPORTS Q4 $0.46 V $0.47E, R $15.84B V $15.65BE
- Guides Q1 $0.47-0.48 v $0.49e, R $14.7-14.9B v $15.1Be
- Guides FY09 $2.12-2.18 v $2.16e, R$67.3B-68.1B v $67.3B  They are guiding lower.

Posted in Categories: Contributor, External Research, Stocks.

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