Retails Sales A Mixed Bag

Morning News of Note:

• EBAY: PayPal Releases Mobile Payment Service PayPal, eBay Inc.'s online-payment processing unit, will make publicly available a new service through which consumers can use their mobile phones and wireless devices to make purchases or send and receive payments. This marks the formal introduction of the San Jose, Calif., company's new mobile service, which the company said on March 23 that it was testing internally among employees. (Full Story) WSJ
• CIEN JDSU COMS: Dialed Up Back in the late 1990s, there was a wide-eyed notion that people one day would use the Internet to do everything from making phone calls to watching movies. The tech-stock meltdown put a rest to that for a while, but the idea doesn't look so heady anymore. Getting videos off the Internet has become so standard that even Hollywood is getting in on the act. When "Brokeback Mountain" was released on DVD Tuesday, fans were also able to purchase and download the movie from the Internet. (Full Story) WSJ
• EBAY GOOG MSFT YHOO: Republicans defeat Net neutrality proposal A Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday defeated a proposal that would have levied extensive regulations on broadband providers and forcibly prevented them from offering higher-speed video services to partners or affiliates. By an 8-to-23 margin, the committee members rejected a Democratic-backed "Net neutrality" amendment to a current piece of telecommunications legislation. (Full Story) CNET
• CWTR: Growth Plan Is A Nice Fit For Women's Apparel Retailer Women of a certain age — those who admit to being at least 35 years old — often complain that they feel ignored in stores. Retailer Coldwater Creek (CWTR) has been paying attention to these shoppers for more than two decades. (Full Story) IBD
• Mad Money Summary: Jim Cramer opened his show by discussing what he believes is the next titanium, berylium. He recommended Brush Engineered Materials (BW), because it is one of the only fully integrated berylium producers in the world. He then reiterated his recommendation of mining stock Crystallex International (KRY), which has doubled since he first recommended it. Cramer then welcomed Terren Peizer, the chairman and CEO of Hythiam (HYTM), to the show. Peizer said the company's Prometa treatment, which is being tested to combat alcohol, cocaine and methamphetamine addictions, is doing well in studies. Cramer said he is lukewarm on the stock, saying he wants to see the results from double-blind studies before he recommends it. In the Lightning Round, Cramer was bullish on Celgene (CELG), Countrywide (CFC), Netflix (NFLX), Georgia Gulf (GGC), Cephalon (CEPH), US Steel (X), AK Steel (AKS), Marchex (MCHX), Red Hat (RHAT), Henry Schein (HSIC) and Petroquest (PQ), and was bearish on Annaly Mortgage Management (NLY), Blockbuster (BBI), Movie Gallery (MOVI), Bema Gold (BGO), VA Software (LNUX) and Pacific Ethanol (PEIX).

Market Comments: The media is trying to spin this morning's retails sales report as much weaker than expected, but my rundown of the individual reports reverals that it really wasn't that bad. Most retailers reported sales that were in-line with the consensus estimates. I will have an update on some of the numbers later.

Biotechs have not been able to participate in this recent rally, and are under pressure again this morning. Is this a seasonal thing? Big cap techs are adding to their recent gains, as are the big brokers. LEH announced a 2-for-1 split this morning.

Bond yields are trading higher, with the 10-year yield at 4.89%. Oil is also up today, trading near $68. These could pressure stocks today.

long GOOG, JDSU