Energy Stocks Rally on Oil Bounce

Oil has another rally fade into the close yesterday. This morning, it is bouncing near the $115 level, which is helping put a bid under all of the oil and gas stocks, as well as ag. Let's see if this bounce has more legs than the last few attempts.

Retail stocks are lower after a soft retail sales report, but Best Buy (BBY) is higher after reporting that it will be the first independant retailer to sell the iPhone.

In merger news, CVS Caremark (CVS) said it will buy Longs Drug (LDG) for $71.50 per share, representing a +32% premium to yesterday's close. Also, Goldman Sachs (GS) has agreed to pay $1.5 billion for some of ABN AMRO's private equity assets (I'm sure they got a good deal).

The Nasdaq is outperforming for a 2nd day after solid earnings reports from Applied Materials (AMAT) and Nvidia (NVDA). Apple, Google, and RIMM have also been trading well lately.

Asian markets were lower across the board overnight, on renewed credit concerns. The dollar is mixed this morning vs. the Yen and Euro. The 10-year yield is down a tad to 3.90%. And the put/call ratio remains high at 1.04 after finishing yesterday at 1.05.

long AAPL, GOOG, GS, RIMM, QLD