Early Weakness

Morning News of Note:

• TWX: AOL TO GOOSE DIAL-UP PRICE America Online, the largest U.S. Internet access provider, will encourage users to switch to higher-speed connections by raising its dial-up pricing to match that of the company's high-speed plans. AOL's dial-up price will rise $2 a month to $25.90 beginning March 9, said Anne Bentley, a spokeswoman for AOL, which is a unit of Time Warner Inc. That equals the price of its lowest-cost broadband service. (Full Story) NY Post
• HPQ EK: Hewlett-Packard Decides Store Photo Printing Is Its Turf You can shoot a digital picture — one of 140 billion snapped last year — with a Hewlett-Packard camera. You can print that photo on a Hewlett PhotoSmart printer at home. Or you can upload the shot to Snapfish.com, which is owned by Hewlett-Packard, and have it send you prints. But if you took the digital file to your neighborhood drugstore, it would be printed by Kodak, Fujifilm, or any number of lesser-known photo processors — not by Hewlett-Packard, the world's largest maker of printers. (Full Story) NY Times
• EYE ACL: Some Vision Stocks May Get a Closer Look AS BABY BOOMERS AGE and innovative technologies allow image-conscious Americans to discard their eyeglasses, companies that find new ways to repair various vision problems have become big business. How big? Worldwide sales of contact lenses, drugs, lens-care solutions and devices that treat different eye diseases exceed $20 billion, growing at nearly 10% a year (Full Story) BARRONS
• LEH: Lehman Moves to End Bundled Fees Research and Trading Costs Are Separated in Makeover Of Commission Structure Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is talking to several mutual-fund firms about striking deals to separate its stock-research and trading fees, in arrangements that would resemble the new one it has with Fidelity Investments. Research fees used to be "bundled" with stock-trading commissions, which are paid by shareholders in mutual funds such as Fidelity's. (Full Story) WSJ
• Mad Money Summary: Jim Cramer opened his show discussing restaurant chains, saying they are becoming less cyclical because the cost of their supplies is going down. These companies are also sitting on solid real estate and have low labor costs. He specifically said to look for good concepts with room for growth, such as Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) and Panera Bread (PNRA). He was also bullish on Darden (DRI), which owns Red Lobster and Olive Garden, and Domino's Pizza (DPZ). On the high end, Cramer said to look at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse (RUTH), which he likes better than Morton's (MRT). He then discussed Starbuck's (SBUX), which he feels still has plenty of room to grow globally. He warns that the stock is currently expensive and suggests buying it after "it gets hit." Cramer also said that Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) had room to grow with only 500 stores, and believed the chain could take market share from YUM! Brands' (YUM) Taco Bell and traditional chains McDonald's (MCD) and Wendy's (WEN). Cramer's final pick was Luby's (LUB), which could be a winner because of solid cash flow and real estate value. However, he said of the actual story that it was "not a great concept or a great restaurant."

Market Comments: The market has opened under quite a bit of selling pressure this morning. Weekly jobless claims fell below 300K (278K) for the sixth straight week. Oil is down, and so are energy stocks. And the 10-year yield is up at 4.56%.

Nonetheless, some market leaders like HANS, AAPL, and GOOG are all trading higher. I would probably be more worried if the market opened strong, and then sold off into the close. But today's weak open sets us up for a rebound into the close, which is much more bullish action. Also, the put/call ratio opened at 1.25, which is indicative of a panic open.

long AAPL, GOOG, TWX