Why YOU should have Ecologic Transportation ($EGCT) on your Radar

Rental Car Industry Heavyweight Seeks a Lighter Footprint

From time to time in my search for undiscovered companies, one will jump out and grab my attention. In the case of Ecologic Transportation (OTCBB: EGCT), it was an old familiar industry heavyweight at its helm that prompted me to "look under the hood" of this company.

At the helm of this little eco-friendly company is a highly accomplished and respected gentleman named Bill Plamondon. Plamondon spent 19 years with Budget Rent-A-Car, the last five as CEO. Shortly thereafter he was president and CEO of Alamo and National Car Rental, where he rented millions of cars to millions of people.

After years of admittedly contributing more than his share of dirty fuels into our air, he decided it was time to start an all "green" transportation company, and Ecologic Transportation Inc. was founded as an innovative company dedicated to environmentally friendly transportation products and services by providing an agnostic approach to green cars and clean fuels.

Ecologic Transportation is an all environmental rental car company, filling a void in the traditional rental car business. Plamondon saw the demand for green rental cars far exceeded the supply. Additionally, no other car rental company is all environmentally friendly in its operations and business practices. What started as an environmentally friendly rental car company has grown to a comprehensive environmentally friendly transportation company.

Most recently, the company rolled out Ecologic Shine?, a waterless environmental car wash process that cleans and shines cars safely using 100% biodegradable products. Ecologic Shine products and services conserve water and eliminate harmful run-off ducts. The offering is said to be good for the environment, good for the customer, good for the vehicle and important for Ecologic Transportation shareholders, good ! for the bottom line. The company recently announced its Ecologic Products services contract with Park ��N Fly, a national off-airport parking company with more than 25,000 spaces in 12 airport markets. Ecologic Products is cleaning cars with environmentally friendly Ecologic Shine?. Currently operating at locations in Atlanta, Ga., with scheduled openings in San Diego and Los Angeles, Calif., expansion continues to the remaining Park ��N Fly corporate locations including San Francisco, Oakland, Calif. And Ontario, Calif., Houston and Dallas, Texas, Minneapolis, Minn.,? Cleveland, Ohio, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and New Orleans, La. This model alone appears to have the potential of being highly scalable, quite profitable and potentially a company maker.

Admittedly the company is still in the fairly early stages of its development and its trading history is somewhat limited having come public through a reverse merger late last year. Its recent pullback in price makes it that more interesting. I've typically found that when you have a proven and accomplished executive like Plamondon essentially come out of retirement to run a small company in a multi-billion vertical he already knows and has had success in, it's worth watching closely. While Plamondon is known as a charitable man who gives back to his community and especially to children, we see his filling the CEO role and being the company's largest shareholder as clearly profit driven. This is obviously an equity play for him which completely aligns his goals with shareholders. I'll be watching Ecologic Transportation and won't be surprised in the least if its CEO Bill Plamondon follows in his past footsteps of building successful businesses and creating shareholder value.

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The Home Depot gets New Top Price of 12 months - NYSE:HD

The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) The Home Depot, Inc. (The Home Depot) is a home improvement retailer. The Home Depot stores sells an assortment of building materials, home improvement and lawn and garden products and provide a number of services. The Home Depot, Inc achieved its new 52 week high price of $42.05 where it was opened at $41.92 up 0.05 points or +0.12% by closing at $42.00. HD transacted shares during the day were over 12.07 million shares however it has an average volume of 12.15 million shares.

HD has intra-day market capitalization $64.75 billion and an enterprise value at $73.22 billion. Trailing twelve months price to sales ratio of the stock was 0.93 while price to book ratio in most recent quarter was 3.64. In profitability ratios, net profit margin in past twelve months appeared at 5.32% whereas operating profit margin for the same period at 9.21%.

The company made a return on asset of 9.61% in past twelve months and return on equity of 20.04% for similar period. In the period of trailing 12 months it generated revenue amounted to $69.51 billion gaining $43.87 revenue per share. Its year over year, quarterly growth of revenue was 4.40% holding 12.00% quarterly earnings growth.

According to preceding quarter balance sheet results, the company had $2.23 billion cash in hand making cash per share at 1.45. The total of $10.78 billion debt was there putting a total debt to equity ratio 60.68. Moreover its current ratio according to same quarter results was 1.46 and book value per share was 11.53.

Looking at the trading information, the stock price history displayed that its S&P500 52 Week Change illustrated -1.04% where the stock current price exhibited up beat from its 50 day moving average price $38.63 and remained above from its 200 Day Moving Average price $35.35.

HD holds 1.54 billion outstanding shares with 1.53 billion floating shares where insider possessed! 0.11% a nd institutions kept 71.30%.

Hewlett-Packard Target Raised to $65 at Collins Stewart

Citing strong PC sales and Intel’s (INTC) first-quarter report, Collins Stewart today upped its Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) price target to $65 from $60.

In a note to clients, analyst Louis Miscioscia writes “we believe trends are even better than we’d thought previously.” Miscioscia now sees fiscal 2010 EPS of $4.55 with revenue of $124 billion, up from $4.46 and $123 billion.

HP shares are down 78 cents, or 1.4%, today to $53.74.

Strange Volume of Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc - NASDAQ:ARIA

Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ:ARIA) witnessed volume of 13.72 million shares during last trade however it holds an average trading capacity of 3.01 million shares. ARIA last trade opened at $10.72 reached intraday low of $10.64 and went +5.47% up to close at $10.99.

ARIA has a market capitalization $1.46 billion and an enterprise value at $1.39 billion. Trailing twelve months price to sales ratio of the stock was 56.68 while price to book ratio in most recent quarter was 54.41. In profitability ratios, operating profit margin in past twelve months appeared at -241.53%.

The company made a return on asset of -43.08% in past twelve months and return on equity of -327.33% for similar period. In the period of trailing 12 months it generated revenue amounted to $25.76 million gaining $0.20 revenue per share.

According to preceding quarter balance sheet results, the company had $86.32 million cash in hand making cash per share at 0.65. The total of $13.03 million debt was there putting a total debt to equity ratio 48.56. Moreover its current ratio according to same quarter results was 4.28 and book value per share was 0.20.

Looking at the trading information, the stock price history displayed that its S&P500 52 Week Change illustrated -2.26% where the stock current price exhibited down beat from its 50 day moving average price of $11.21 and remained up from its 200 Day Moving Average price of $10.44.

ARIA holds 132.85 million outstanding shares with 127.13 million floating shares where insider possessed 3.63% and institutions kept 59.30%.

U.S. Economy Grew at 2.8% Pace in Fourth Quarter

The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace since the second quarter of 2010 in the three months ended in December, but a strong rebuilding of stocks by businesses and weak spending on capital goods signaled an impending slowdown in early 2012.

U.S. gross domestic product grew at a 2.8 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department reported on Friday in Washington, after growing at a 1.8 percent clip in the previous three months.

Despite growing at its fastest pace in 1 1/2 years, the U.S. economy still grew less than expected in the fourth quarter, falling just below projections for a 3.0 percent growth rate. The U.S. economy grew 1.7 percent in the whole of 2011 after expanding 3 percent in 2010.

“The economy ended 2011 on a fairly positive note, but the composition of growth in the last quarter is not favorable for growth early this year,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics, ahead of this morning’s report.

Fourth-quarter growth got a temporary boost from the rebuilding of business inventories after they declined in the third quarter for the first time since late 2009. Inventories increased by $56.0 billion, the most since the third quarter of 2010, adding 1.94 percentage points to GDP growth. Excluding inventories, the economy grew just 0.8 percent in the fourth quarter, a sharp step down from the previous quarter’s 3.2 percent pace.

Exports held up despite slowing global demand, but an increase in imports widened the trade gap, slicing off 0.11 percentage points from GDP growth.

Business spending on capital goods was the the slowest since 2009, growing at a 1.7 percent rate after growing at a 15.7 percent rate in the third quarter, while a heavy rebuilding of stocks in the fourth quarter suggests the recovery will take a hit in early 2012.

Expectations for soft growth led the Federal Reserve to say on Wednesday it expected to keep interest rates near record lows at least through late 201! 4, exten ding its promise by more than a year.

However, though analysts are anticipating a slowdown this year, they do not believe the economy will fall into recession.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emily Knapp at staff.writers@wallstcheatsheet.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Damien Hoffman at editors@wallstcheatsheet.com

Sirius XM Radio Shares Popped: What You Need to Know

Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of Sirius XM Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI  ) are jamming out today, up by as much as 11% after the company announced full year 2011 subscriber data last night.

So what: Sirius XM shares have reclaimed the $2 threshold for the first time since August, as the company announced it ended 2011 with almost 21.9 million subscribers. Sirius XM added 1.7 million net new subscribers during the year, with 540,000 of them in the fourth quarter alone.

Now what: The subscriber gains bested the company's own subscriber guidance for the year, although the figures are preliminary. Subscriber growth accelerated in 2011 as net additions jumped roughly 20% to deliver the best year of net additions since the two companies merged. For even more color on the announcement, don't miss fellow Fool Rick Munarriz's take by clicking here.

I Call Shenanigans on This Economic Indicator

All economic indicators are rearward-looking; that's just a fact. The data that goes into their summation is gathered from the past, and they offer only glimpses as to what to expect for the immediate future. This doesn't mean that I don't find some of these indicators to be useful. GDP, unemployment data, the monthly purchasing managers index, and the monthly U.S. trade deficit report are all valuable tools that I use to get a glimpse as to where the economy could be headed next.

And then there are the useless indicators -- the ones I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them.

Housing, schmousing!
This week's news from the National Association of Homebuilders noted that U.S. homebuilders' sentiment rose to 25 in January, its highest level in 4.5 years. The homebuilder sentiment index takes into account the overall outlook on the housing sector based on the opinions of 466 different homebuilders.

Although this represents the highest level of optimism among homebuilders since June 2007, I'm still going to call shenanigans on this indicator.

Beyond the numbers
Rather than misconstruing "less-bad" as good, it is a step in the right direction that every month in 2011 brought year-over-year declines in foreclosure filings. Thanks to nightmarish documentation and legal problems, fewer than 1.9 million foreclosure filings were sent out in 2011. This does not, however, solve the problem that nearly 1.4 million foreclosed homes are currently sitting on the market waiting to be purchased, according to data from RealtyTrac. Offering investors and first-time buyers significant price-breaks over a new home, foreclosures are continuing to muck up housing's recovery.

It also bears noting that the index at 25 still exudes the poor conditions of the sector. A reading over 50 would indicate a good outlook while anything below that signals poor operating conditions. This is pretty consistent with the degree of growth we're getting out of th! e homebu ilding sector. New orders at Lennar (NYSE: LEN  ) are up 20% based on its latest quarter, Standard Pacific (NYSE: SPF  ) reported a 42% year-over-year jump in backlog back in October, and struggling Hovnanian (NYSE: HOV  ) even reported a 19% increase in backlog based on units -- yet only Lennar is profitable.

A quick scan of the housing sector reveals considerably more companies are losing money on a trailing-12-month basis than are making money, and even those that are making money, like Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL  ) , only wound up making a full-year profit thanks to the exclusion of inventory writedowns from its earnings results.

Finally, we have to remember that the housing sector has faked us out before. The worst was supposed to be over in 2009. Then 2010 was supposed to mark a bottom when the government introduced the new homebuyer tax credits and attempted to stimulate the housing sector. When that didn't work, homebuilders declared 2011 the bottom... and many still lost money. So here we are, early in 2012, and the U.S. homebuilder sentiment index is indicating that the outlook on housing is the best it has been in years. Call me not convinced.

Kick it to the curb
Unemployment rates have improved but are still historically high, the number of foreclosed homes for sale remains historically high, housing prices are just barely off their lows, and the majority of the sector is still bathing in losses. Cheer this economic indicator all you want, but I'd trust a monkey throwing darts long before I'd put my faith behind this indicator.

What's your opinion on the housing sector? Sound off in the comments section below.

If, like me, you're tired of the housing sector giving you the runaround, I invite you to download a copy! of our latest special report: "3 American Companies Set to Dominate the World." Why worry about money-losing companies when our top analysts have picked out three names ready to dominate the emerging markets for you? Best of all, this report is completely free -- but only for a limited time, so don't miss out!

U.S. Banks Threatened by Euro Contagion: Fitch

U.S. bank ratings face a threat from European contagion, according to a note from FitchRatings.

"Fitch believes that, unless the eurozone debt crisis is resolved in a timely and orderly manner, the broad outlook for U.S. banks will darken," the ratings company stated in a note published Wednesday.

While Fitch sees net exposure to stressed European countries including Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain as manageable, the ratings firm notes that hedges are imperfect. Still, Fitch describes even gross direct exposures are manageable.

However, Fitch has other concerns.

"U.S. banks could be greatly affected if contagion continues to spread beyond the stressed European markets exposures to large European countries and banks are sizable. The ongoing economic and market effects are additional concerns," Fitch states in its report.

Fitch puts "cross-border outstandings" to France at $188n billion for the top five U.S. banks, including $114 billion to French banks at the end of the second quarter. U.K. exposure was $225 billion, including $51 billion to French banks.

Money market exposure presents additional risks, Fitch contends.

"Beyond direct exposure, money market funds (MMFs) affiliated with major U.S. banks have additional exposure. While not contractually required, banks oftentimes offer support to affiliated MMFs in the event of need for business/reputation reasons," Fitch's report states.

Of the top 10 U.S. money market funds three are tied to U.S. banks. Those three funds have $89 billion of exposure to European banks, accounting for 39% of tier one capital.

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Kansas City Southern Earnings Preview

Investors hope Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSU  ) will top analyst estimates once again after beating predictions by $0.03 in the previous quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. Kansas City Southern is engaged in domestic and international rail operations in North America that are focused on the growing north/south freight corridor connecting commercial and industrial markets in the Central U.S.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Kansas City Southern, with 11 of 16 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Kansas City Southern better than competitor Canadian Pacific Railway overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $549.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 14.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.79 per share. Estimates range from $0.77 to $0.83.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 98.1% giving it an outperform rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 96.4% assigning it a rating of outperform. Fools are bullish on Kansas City Southern and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 156 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, Kansas City Southern's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
Kansas City Southern's profit has risen year over year by an average of 97.4% over the past five quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with! which c ompanies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q3	Q2	Q1	Q4
Gross Margin	57.6%	56.4%	56.1%	53.8%
Operating Margin	33.4%	28.3%	26.2%	28.2%
Net Margin	18.3%	13.2%	13.1%	11.4%

One final thing: If you want to keep tabs on Kansas City Southern movements, and for more analysis on the company, make sure you add it to your watchlist.

Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy..

Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.

Introducing the 24/7 Wall St. Wire

Cisco (CSCO) is launching a new line of products to serve big corporate data centers. According to The Wall Street Journal "the networking giant says its Nexus Series of products will address problems that have arisen in corporate data centers, which house communication and computing equipment."

Large data centers run so much software on so many servers that often significant amounts of capacity go unused. Cisco means to address that problem.

Cisco’s plan may be a headache for Sun Microsystems (JAVA) which already makes a large portion of its money from supplying solutions similar to Cisco’s. Of course, Cisco is growing rapidly and has a multitude of resources. Sun’s revenue is moving up in the low single digits and it is operating to save itself from obscurity.

Who wins that race?

Douglas A. McIntyre

At $75 billion to $100 billion, the valuation could be lower than expected

According to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook will file its S-1 with the Securities & Exchange Commission next week, perhaps on Wednesday. It looks like Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) will be the lead banker. In terms of Net deals, Morgan has been the go-to player. Some of its other transactions include Groupon (NASDAQ:GRPN), Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) and LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD).

Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) is supposed to have a key role in the deal. But losing the lead to Morgan must be a huge disappointment for Goldman. Consider that it led the $1.5 billion private financing round for Facebook about a year ago.

The social network’s valuation is expected to range from $75 billion to $100 billion. Interestingly enough, this is down from the $100 billion+ that has been widely rumored. Perhaps Facebook��s financials aren’t as standout? Maybe Google��s (NASDAQ:GOOG) social network is becoming a problem?

Regardless, Facebook’s offering is likely to be the biggest one in Internet history.

The SEC, however, may also take this as an opportunity to set up some guidelines. Might it crack down on secondary markets? What about accounting rules for digital sales? This IPO filing could be a source of vigorous debate beyond valuation.

Tom Taulli runs the InvestorPlace blog?IPO Playbook, a site dedicated to the hottest news and rumors about initial public offerings. He also is the author of?��All About Short Selling��?and?��All About Commodities.��?Follow him on Twitter at?@ttaulli. As of this writing, he did not own a position in any of the aforementioned securities.

The State of His Policies

President Obama delivered a State of the Union address Tuesday night that by the account of his own advisers is more campaign document than a plan for governing. He's running against Republicans in Congress, Reaganomics, wealthy bankers and inequality.

Normally a President at the start of his fourth year would be running on his record, accentuating the legislation he's passed. Mr. Obama can't do that with any specificity because the economic recovery has been so weak and the legislation he has passed is so unpopular. So last night he took credit for the shale gas revolution he had nothing to do with and proposed new policies to "spread the wealth around," as he famously told Joe the Plumber in 2008 before he took the words back. We thought he meant it then, and now he's admitting it.

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Perhaps this will work if Republicans nominate a standard-bearer who is damaged, or too cautious or guilty to challenge this politics of envy. Mr. Obama clearly has Mitt Romney and his 14% effective tax rate in his sights (see the editorial nearby). The President will try to portray Mr. Romney as Mr. 1%, and if the Republican settles for defending the current tax code, he will lose. He needs a tax reform proposal of his own, as well as the self-confidence to argue for it in the same moral terms that Mr. Obama will attack him.

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European Pressphoto Agency

Meantime, as Mr. Obama begins his fourth year in power it's a good moment to recount the economic record that he'd rather not talk about. The President inherited a deep recession, but in political terms that should have been a blessing. History shows that the deeper the recession, the sharper the recovery, and Mr. Obama was poised to take credit for the economy's natural recuperative powers. Instead, we've had the weakest recovery since the Great Depression and stubbornly high joblessness.

The nearby chart compares rates of quarterly growth during the Reagan and Obama economic recoveries. The comparison is apt because both recoveries followed deep recessions in which the jobless rate reached more than 10%. Once the Reagan recovery got cooking, in 1983, growth stayed above 5% for 18 months and never fell below 3.3% for 13 consecutive quarters.

In the Obama recovery, growth has never exceeded 4% in any quarter and fell off markedly in mid-2010 through the third quarter of 2011. For the first nine months of 2011, growth averaged less than 1.2%. The economy finally picked up again in the fourth quarter, but still at a rate that is subpar for a recovery that long ago should have become robust and durable.

As he runs for re-election, Mr. Obama is trying to campaign as an incumbent who is striving to help the economy but has been stymied at every turn by Congress! . Not ev en MSNBC can believe this. For two years he had the largest Democratic majorities in Congress since the 1970s and achieved nearly everything he wanted.

The New Yorker magazine this week has posted on its website a 57-page memo that economic adviser Larry Summers wrote to Mr. Obama in December 2008. It lays out nearly his entire agenda for the "stimulus," reviving housing, the auto bailout and saving the financial industry. If anything, the memo overstates what would be needed to stabilize the financial panic, but nearly all of the stimulus spending priorities that the memo deemed "feasible" made it into law. They simply didn't work as promised.

The Pelosi Congress also passed ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, cash for clunkers, the housing tax credit, and much more. The only Obama priority it didn't pass was cap-and-trade, which was killed by Senate Democrats.

Mr. Obama's regulators also currently have some 149 major rules underway, which are those that cost more than $100 million. The 112th Congress hasn't been able to kill a single major rule. The most it has been able to do is extend the Bush tax rates—which helped the economy by avoiding a tax shock—and slow the rate of increase in federal spending. This President has been "obstructed" less than anyone since LBJ.

Mr. Obama clearly has a spring in his step these days, figuring that the public hates Congress and thinks Republicans run it, that the GOP will field a weak presidential candidate, and that he can fool the public into believing only Mitt Romney's taxes will rise if Mr. Obama wins a second term. He has only one big obstacle: his record.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page 16

PetMed Express Earnings Preview

After beating estimates last quarter by $0.05, PetMed Express (Nasdaq: PETS  ) has set the standard for itself. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday. PetMed Express is a nationwide pet pharmacy. The company markets prescription and nonprescription pet medications and other health products for dogs, cats, and horses direct to the consumer.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts like PetMed Express better than competitor China Nepstar Chain Drug overall. Zero out of two analysts rate China Nepstar Chain Drug a buy compared to one of six for PetMed Express. Analysts still rate the stock a moderate sell, but they are a bit more wary about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $44.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 0.8% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.16 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.17.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.1% granting it an outperform rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 97.2% awarding it a rating of outperform. Fools are gung-ho about PetMed Express and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 330 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, PetMed Express' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
PetMed Express' income has fallen year over year by an average of 26.2% over the past five quarters. Revenue has fallen in the past two quarters. The company's gross margin shrank by 2.2 percentage points in the last quarter. Revenue fell 4.9% while cost of sales fell 1.6% to $38.3 million from a year earlier.

Now let's look at! how eff icient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter	Q2	Q1	Q4	Q3
Gross Margin	34.2%	32.8%	34.3%	37.5%
Operating Margin	10.4%	10.3%	12.7%	15.6%
Net Margin	6.7%	6.6%	8.1%	10.0%

We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized service. Add PetMed Express now.

The Motley Fool owns shares of PetMed Express.. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy..

Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.

Top Federal Reserve Officials Predict Weak Second Half; Warn Growth May Not Return Until 2010

CIENA Corp (Nasdaq:CIEN) and the Ukrainian telecoms operator Eurotranstelecom (ETT?), announced the first commercial deployment of 100G in Eastern Europe as part of Eurotranstelecom’s nationwide backbone network covering the key regions in Ukraine and linking it to Russian, Polish, Hungarian and Slovakian networks.

Ciena Corporation provides communications networking equipment, software, and services that support the transport, switching, aggregation, and management of voice, video, and data traffic.

MAJESTIC GOLD CORP (MJGCF.PK)

MAJESTIC GOLD CORP (MJGCF.PK) engages in the exploration and development of mineral properties in China. The company focuses on its gold project located in the prolific gold region of Song Jiagou in eastern Shandong Province. Majestic Gold Corp. is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada.

MAJESTIC GOLD CORP (MJGCF.PK) has arranged a $10,000,000 loan to advance its Song Jiagou project in China. Nine million dollars ($9,000,000) from the proceeds from the loan will be used by the Company to in connection with its Song Jiagou project and the balance of one million dollars ($1,000,000) for general working capital purposes.

The loan will have a one year term and loan principal will be convertible at the option of the lender in whole or in part into common shares (”Shares”) of the Company until twelve months from the date of the loan advance at the price of $0.205 per Share. The loan will bear interest at the rate of 7.5% per annum, payable on maturity, and accrued and unpaid interest will be convertible at the option of the lender in whole or in part into shares of the Company until twelve months from the date of the loan advance at Market Price at the time of conversi! on.

< p>The lender is at arm’s length from the Company and will not become an insider as a result of any conversion of principal and interest. All shares issued on any conversion of loan principal or interest will be subject to a four month hold period from the date of advance of loan proceeds. The loan is subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange.

As additional consideration for the loan, the Company has agreed to forward at least $9 million to Majestic Yantai Gold Ltd., a British Virgin Islands company owned 94% by the Company to be used to further advance its Song Jiagou project. The Borrower has also agreed to a 90 day period for reciprocal due diligence reviews and discussions for the possible further involvement of the Lender in the Song Jiagou project.

In the event that no further agreement is reached between the Lender and the Company during the 90 day period, then the loan and a minimum of seven (7) months interest will automatically convert to shares in the Company at a price of $0.205 per share and the interest at Market Price respectively. In addition the Company is pleased to announce that it has arranged a non-brokered private placement of up to 15,000,000 shares to be issued at the price of $0.20 per share for gross proceeds of $3,000,000.

An obvious symbol of wealth and plenty, gold has its own special place in the industrial fields. As a good electrical conductor, it fuels the electronics field and helps produce some of the world finest electronic products such as the refrigerator, air conditioner, television and so many other modern conveniences that humans are finding it hard to live without.

For more information about MAJESTIC GOLD CORP. visit its website: http://www.majesticgold.net

Calamos Asset Management Inc. (Nasdaq:CLMS) will announce earnings for the third quarter of 2011 after the financial markets close on Thursday, November 3, 2011. An investor conference call is scheduled that day at 4 p.m. Central Time.

! Calamos Asset Management Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm provides investment advisory services to individuals including high net worth individuals, and institutions

Global Hunter (GBLHF.PK)

Molybdenum is alloyed with steel making it stronger and more highly resistant to heat because molybdenum has such a high melting temperature. The alloys are used to make such things as rifle barrels and filaments for light bulbs. The iron and steel industries account for more than 75% of molybdenum consumption.

The two largest uses of molybdenum are as an alloy in stainless steels and in alloy steels-these two uses consume about 60% of the molybdenum needs in the United States. Stainless steels include the strength and corrosion-resistant requirements for water distribution systems, food handling equipment, chemical processing equipment, home, hospital, and laboratory requirements. Alloy steels include the stronger and tougher steels needed to make automotive parts, construction equipment, and gas transmission pipes.

Global Hunter’s focus is on strategic and base metals, with an advanced stage copper oxide project in Chile and a highly prospective molybdenum property in British Columbia, Canada. GBLHF teams are working on developing the Corona de Cobre property in Chile and the Rabbit south property in British Columbia.

Global Hunter Corp. (GBLHF.PK) is pleased to announce initial assay results from its previously announced surface sampling program. The results are encouraging with new gold showings as well as very positive copper oxide assays over wide-spread areas.

Highlights of the entire program
9 mineralized shear and/or alteration zones sampled total of 13.5 kilometers of strike length along know c! opper be aring shear and alteration zones tested with 205 rock chip samples
Good grades of soluble copper (oxide) over a significantly large area have been identified, however they represent only about 50% of the total copper grade indicating a mixed oxide-sulphide zone. Numerous iron oxide structures have also been mapped but no iron assays have been received to date.

The Company is planning to re-assay samples for iron to determine if iron is present in significant quantities to represent another target.

For more information http://www.globalhunter.ca

Sabra Healthcare REIT, Inc. (Nasdaq:SBRA) reaffirmed its expectation of a quarterly dividend of $0.32 per share, consistent with the first and second quarters. Pending the board’s declaration of the dividend, Sabra expects the dividend will be paid during the fourth quarter of 2011. Sabra also announced that it will issue its 2011 third quarter earnings release after close of market on Wednesday, November 2, 2011.

Sabra Health Care REIT, Inc. (Nasdaq:SBRA), a Maryland corporation, is a self-administered, self-managed real estate investment trust (a “REIT”) that, through its subsidiaries, owns and invests in real estate serving the healthcare industry.

'Safe' Stocks Off to Wobbly Start in 2012 - SmartMoney.com

Stock investors are having a mostly happy new year. The S&P 500-stock index returned around 5% through Friday. And yet the slice of the index that represents safety to many investors -- consumer staples -- is down slightly.

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Earnings for the sector have likewise failed to impress. It's early in the current reporting season, with results in for just 59 of the 500 index members; 20 of those companies, or 34%, have so far fallen short of Wall Street forecasts -- a higher than usual miss rate. For consumer staples companies, however, four out of six, or 67%, have missed estimates.

Staples are goods like food, beer, cigarettes and diapers that tend to stay in steady demand even when the economy sours. Nervous investors have rushed into shares of companies that sell such goods in recent years, bidding prices higher. The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR (XLP), an exchange-traded fund, has returned an average of 6.8% a year over the past five years, versus just 0.3% a year for the broader SPDR S&P 500 (SPY), even though fees on the latter are about half as high.

That has left staples shares priced at a premium. The sector recently traded at 16 times projected 2011 earnings, versus 13 times earnings for the broad 500 index. Fast earnings growth can make such premiums worth paying, but analysts foresee below-average earnings growth for staples companies this year -- 8%, versus 10% for the index.

The economic profiles of some staple goods may have changed. An abundance of ! small-ba tch beer has left big brewers fighting volume declines, and spirits and wine have gotten posher, fueling past growth but adding to economic sensitivity today. Tobacco faces smoking bans. Even packaged food makers are caught between higher ingredient prices and a reluctance among shoppers to pay more.

General Mills (GIS), which makes Cheerios, and Constellation Brands (STZ), which distributes Robert Mondavi wines, each fell short of analyst forecasts earlier this month. Altria (MO), which makes Marlboro cigarettes, reports earnings on Friday.

If staples shares look weak at the moment, technology shares look surprisingly strong. Within the S&P 500, the sector is up 6% this year. It trades at around 13 times earnings. Only two of 12 companies that have reported earnings during the current season have missed forecasts. Last Thursday, Microsoft (MSFT), IBM (IBM) and Intel (INTC) each reported upside surprises.

Together, those three have an average dividend yield 2.5%, just shy of the 2.7% yield for the SPDR staples fund. And although computer chips, software and technology consulting won't hold up like franks and beans in the event of another recession, the tech trio has a balance sheet advantage. Many staples companies use considerable debt to try to enhance returns. IBM owes little and pays minuscule interest rates. Microsoft and Intel sit on large cash surpluses.