Stronger than expected Chicago PMI

Chicago PMI for November came in better than expected at 56.1 versus a consensus of 53.3. Almost all readings were in the positive territory - Employment, though still contracting (Note that any reading below 50 signifies contraction) improved from 38.3 to 41.9.

A busy week ahead

A busy week ahead for the stock markets as it gets ready to absorb various economic reports:

- Chicago PMI due Monday, 11/30 - Might give us a peek into what to expect from ISM Manufacturing report on 12/1
- ISM Manufacturing Index due Tuesday, 12/1- A better than October PMI reading of 55.7 would definitely signal a consistent growth, although the market expects a reading of 54.8, slightly below October reading.
- Auto Sales and ADP employment report - significant but may hardly move the markets
- Initial unemployment claims as always due Thursday 8:30am - Claims have been on a decline since past few weeks and another decline might signal consistent decline in layoffs.
- The most important and market-shaker BLS unemployment rate due Friday 8:30am - Anything north of 10.3% is sure to send jitters down the market. Investors would also be closely watching average workweek number as that is by far the most leading indicator in this otherwise lagging jobs report. Any improvement to 33.0 hrs  non-farm private average workweek would be taken very positively by the market.

Yahoo NEW stock screener - great tool but hard to find

Yahoo as a company continues to amaze me! They have a great stock screener embedded inside Yahoo Finance but it's not searchable from the search engines (not even Yahoo search) unless you type the right keywords. A search for "Yahoo stock screener" on yahoo and google points to the primitive old screener page and there is no way to reach to the new comprehensive java based screener from the old page. Only if you type "yahoo stock screener java", you reach the new stock screener page.

This java based screener is great for individual investors such as me who cannot afford the expensive paid CapitalIQ subscriptions. It offers a boatload of screening criteria and can definitely be a handy tool in coming up with a shortlist of stocks to dig deeper into. However, few suggestions for the next version (if anyone at Yahoo is still supporting this tool):

- Consider making this tool a desktop downloadable software rather than as a web1.0 style java-enabled pop-up. Or at lease consider a savvy Web2.0 flash based version.
- There is no way to add geographic information on the screener (I want to look at the companies based out of US and not ADRs and there is no way to filter that)
- If you really want feedback from users, please fix the "Give us Feedback" link. Currently, it goes to a broken link.

BerrySki - offline GPS ski resort map for your blackberry

If you are an avid skier, a must have app for your blackberry that lets you visualize the ski resort map even without the network or internet connection. A powerful analytics feature is an added bonus.
Here is the link for the app: http://www.berryski.com/main/

STEC: What a chart

What will happen when your YTD stock chart looks like this? STEC rose from $3.42 almost an year ago to $42.50 in Sep-09, yielding an unprecedented 1100% return in a year - only to fall to $13.13 at the market close yesterday, a staggering 70% drop from the peak in 2 months. Add to this the CEO selling 9 million shares at $31in August.
The result: bunch of lawsuits from various law firms..