ECONOMY & MARKETS

In the NASDAQ stock market on Tuesday, top after-market gainers are: lululemon athletic, Vermillion, Matrixx Initiatives, Warren Resources and Sterling Bancshares. The top losers are: Trimble Navigation, Tree.com, Career Education, Patterson-UTI Energy and QLogic Corp.

China's central bank bill and government bond yields edged lower on Wednesday as easing concerns over another monetary tightening step in the coming weeks along with ample liquidity kept sentiment cautiously optimistic, traders said.

Aluminium output in China, the world's top producer, may be trimmed further this month as smelters in southwest Guizhou province face power cuts to offset soaring energy demand linked to freezing weather, industry sources said on Wednesday.

Text of Goldman Sachs 8-K filing showing 2010 earnings under new disclosure standards

Stocks pushed modestly higher, buoyed by some better-than-expected earnings results from prominent companies like Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA).

Some market observers are extremely concerned about the impact of high-frequency trading upon the overall stock market.

Despite a still-fragile U.S. economy and persistently high unemployment, The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the nation's largest donor-advised fund program, said its donors supported charities in record numbers in 2010.

Shares of gunmaker Sturm, Ruger & Co. (NYSE:RGR) are trading higher today apparently boosted by a surge in sales of handguns in Arizona following the weekend massacre in Tucson by Jared Lee Loughner.

Hustler, entrepreneur, and innovator 50 Cent is ten steps ahead of everyone else.

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) are plunging after the unexpected departure of the company chief executive officer, Dirk Meyer.

UBS Securities upgraded PC giant Hewlett-Packard to buy from neutral, citing improving growth prospects for the majority of HP's segments through 2011.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: Interactive Intelligence, Heartware International, Apollo Group, Sears Holdings, and Telular. The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: ClickSoftware Technologies, Tuesday Morning, Glu Mobile, L & L Energy, and Cheesecake Factory.

Shares of Supervalu (NYSE: SVU) are plunging this morning after the retail grocer posted a loss for the third quarter and slashed its full year profit outlook.

Kuwait Oil Council on Monday predicted that oil barrel price to reach $110 in the next few weeks as the global economy recovers fast.

US stocks advanced in early trade on Tuesday as Alcoa kicked off the earnings season by beating forecasts, while Japan’s pledge to buy eurozone bonds eased concerns about eurozones debt.

Advanced Micro Devices said Monday its chief executive Dirk Meyer has resigned with immediate effect and appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer Thomas Seifert as interim CEO.

The companies which are expected to see active trade on Tuesday are Alcoa, Advanced Micro Devices, Lennar Corp, Supervalu, Apollo Group, Stryker, Intel and Nvid

The Greek budget deficit narrowed more than targeted last year, mainly led by a drop in government spending.

Statistics released by the People’s Bank of China on Tuesday showed the Chinese forex kitty is bursting at seams with an 18.6 percent growth in 2010 which made it zoom to a record $2.85 trillion.

The top after-market NYSE gainers on Monday are: Nautilus, KKR & Co, Stryker, Lennar and GATX. The top after-market NYSE losers on Monday are: The St. Joe Co, CBIZ, Headwaters, Advanced Micro Devices, MarkWest Energy and Alcoa.

As the European debt crisis worsens there appears to be more help coming from Asia, with Japan on Tuesday offering to buy Irish bonds coming up for sale this month.

Chip giant Intel will pay $1.5 billion to Nvidia as part of a cross licensing deal that brings an end to all of the outstanding legal disputes between the two parties.

Stocks finished mixed, following a sell-off in Europe, on worries over Portugal possibly needing a financial bailout, ahead of the kick-off of the fourth-quarter earnings season.

India is considering using gold to temporarily settle oil trades with Iran. If India were to settle crude oil trade in gold (even temporarily), it may set a precedence that will further erode the international status of the U.S. dollar and bolster the reputation of gold.

For all its dilution and exceptions, the Volcker Rule is no joke and has prompted the exodus of prop traders from big banks like Goldman Sachs.

Education-related stocks are getting hammered this morning after a prominent company in the field, Strayer Education (Nasdaq: STRA) reported a 20 percent drop in poor enrollment for its latest winter term.

In a repeat of a similar scenario from last month, thousands of Bangladeshi investors rioted on the streets of Dhaka, angry after incurring huge losses on the stock market.

BP Plc, which is tormented by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, has witnessed a positive development last week when Presidential Commission did not find BP solely responsible for the oil spill.

The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market gainers are: Conexant Systems, Dot Hill Systems, Qiao Xing Universal Resources, SunPower, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, and Genzyme. The top pre-market NASDAQ stock market losers are: Strayer Education, Apollo Group, PDL BioPharma, Rovi, and Corinthian Colleges.