Opening selloff

"To grow and know what one is growing towards-- that is the source of all strength and confidence in life." - James Baillie

Morning News of Note:

• WMT: Wal-Mart's Best Bargain IT WAS A LONG, LONG TIME AGO that shares of Wal-Mart Stores were last this cheap. Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House, most people hadn't heard of the Internet and O.J. Simpson was on trial for murder. Chances are, it'll be quite awhile before they're this cheap again. At a recent price of about 44, the shares are trading at just 14.6 times estimated earnings for next year, the stock's lowest multiple since 1995. (Full Story) BARRONS
• INTC: Intel to Unveil New Chips for Servers Processor With Two Brains Is Designed to Close Gap In Performance With AMD Intel Corp. today hopes to close a performance gap with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in the hotly contested market for chips used in server systems. Chips from Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., provide the processing power for the vast majority of x86 servers, the design typically used to run the Linux operating system or Microsoft Corp.'s Windows. (Full Story) WSJ
• NOK: CEO Jorma Ollila sees good demand for global handset sales in 2006; emerging mkt demand making up for slowing growth in developed countries; buzz in Mid East, Gulf and Africa is similar to China seven or eight years ago and LatAm two years ago -- FT
• Avian Flu: U.S. Revises Flu Emergency Plan Romania, Turkey Battle Avian Flu As Tests Look for Deadly Strain A superflu could kill up to 1.9 million Americans, according to a draft of the government's plan to fight a world-wide epidemic. Separately, Turkey and Romania culled thousands of birds and imposed quarantine zones Sunday to try to stop the spread of avian flu as scientists worked to discover if the outbreaks could be the deadly H5N1 strain (Full Story) WSJ
• PFE: Pfizer's New Headache DRUG-BENEFIT MANAGER EXPRESS SCRIPTS HAS YANKED the beard of the biggest lion. Now, investors will see if it emerges a hero or gets mauled. Word got out last week that the St. Louis-based pharmacy-benefit manager (ticker: ESRX) will drop Pfizer's cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor from the list of preferred drugs that it promotes to its clients. (Full Story) BARRONS

Market Comments: The market is plunging after a relatively flat open. It's still early though, and if stocks can mount a turnaround today, it could set us up for a nice bounce this week after last week's selloff.

XLNX earnings warning this morning has the chip sector under a lot of pressure. Housing and energy stocks are also under the gun, continuing last week's selling. There are a few stocks bucking the weakness, but not much else. Sentiment figures showed bearishness remains high, which is one of the reasons I think we get a bounce.

long INTC, WMT