Morning News of Note:

• DELL: Dell's Rollins Backs Away From Goal of $80 Bln in Sales by 2009 Dell Inc. Chief Executive Officer Kevin Rollins backed away from a goal of reaching $80 billion in sales within four years and said the company now has no time frame for reaching the target. ``We still believe the $80 billion target is achievable,'' Rollins said on a conference call yesterday after Round Rock, Texas-based Dell posted its slowest sales gains in more than three years. ``No timeline for you on that.'' (Full Story) Bloomberg
• Energy: Energy's Correction May Be Temporary ENERGY STOCKS HAVE BEEN THE FATTED CALF in portfolios this year. Yet their selloff in October may create some buying opportunities. Oil prices have tumbled 17% from their peak during Hurricane Katrina, and energy stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index have followed suit. They've dropped roughly 10% from their mid-September high, seriously underperforming the broader index's flat returns, according to Thomson Financial/Baseline. (Full Story) BARRONS
• COF: Wachovia-WB may buy COF-BusinessWeek: COF is the target of new takeover speculation; this time the acquirer is WB. WB is rumored to be interested in getting into the credit card business and the fastest way in is not to build the operation from scratch, but to buy the largest independent credit card provider. Analysts believe that the buyout price for COF would be in the $103 per share neighborhood.
• PTEN: Patterson-UTI Energy-PTEN announces an internal investigation into former officer: The investigation is into whether $70M may have been embezzled by a former officer.
• SYY: Sysco-SYY announces a 20M share buyback program
• Fund flows: equity funds rptd net inflows $3.717bln, ex ETFs $2.108bln; domestic equity funds rptd inflows $1.061bln, first in eight weeks; ETF flows: EWJ inflows $552m, SPY inflows $409m, IYR inflows $292m, EEM inflows EFA inflows $204m, QQQQ outflows $738m, XLE outflows $201m; taxable bond funds rptd inflows $24m, HY bond funds rptd outflows ($138m); money mkt funds rptd inflows $14.207bln -- AMG Data

Market Comments: The market is fairly flat in early trading. DELL's earnings were a bit of a mixed bag, so they are neither helping nor hurting tech this morning. KSS reported a solid quarter, and the stock is moving higher. There have been a lot of stock buyback announcements lately as well. Energy stocks may be getting sold out in the short-term, and it would not surprise me to see a little bounce.

Financials are also starting to move, from banks to brokers to asset managers. I have started to add a little there. But my biggest weightings going into year-end are technology related, with a healthy dose of retail and select healthcare.

long KSS, SYY