Insiders' Blog

Gold is taking a serious hit today, with the December 09 contracts down about $44.50 to $1171.80, on today’s better-than-expected jobs number. Opening action had the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 1.4% to 10,516.57, and subsequently dropped back to 10,311.81 before posting a recovery. The dollar has been strong all day, and gaining strength as the Euro has fallen 1.46% versus the USD today.

Investors have been flocking to Gold as a safe haven (along with silver, platinum, and any other precious or semi-precious metal) as the U.S. dollar weakens. With today’s reversal in the dollar, investors in gold are busy locking in steady profits they’ve seen over the past months.

Gold has made the move from around $850/oz. in late 2008, to closing above a record high of $1200/oz. this week, representing a change of about 41% over the course of one year.

A few ETF’s that have seen gain’s with gold YTD:

• Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE: GDX) up 47%, eclipsing the Dow’s gain of 17% YTD. GDX is down 6.84% to $49.87 today though;
  
  
• SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) up 32%, 4.29% down to 113.61 today;
  
  
• iShares COMEX Gold Trust (NYSE: IAU) up 31%, and down 4.36% to $113.65 today;
  
  
• PowerShares DB Gold (NYSE: DGL) up 30% on the year, but down 4.54% to $41.42 today; and
  
  
• Market VECTORS Junior (NYSE: GDXJ) down 6.77% to $26.58 on the session. (This one’s only a few weeks old.)

Office supplies companies higher on jobs report, which showed we are getting closer to job creation: OfficeMax Inc. (NYSE: OMX) +10%, Staples, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLS) +2.5%, Office Depot, Inc. (NYSE: ODP) +1.7.

The theme is think "jobs" and look for trades and opportunity. Ealier we mentioned Staffing companies.

Here are a few more others: office funiture makers Herman Miller Inc. (Nasdaq: MLHR) and Steelcase Inc. (NYSE: SCS).

Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV) shares have been rocketing up this morning, up more than 18% to $2.11 in late morning trades.

Synovus was upgraded early this morning by FBR research, from Underperform to Market Perform. FBR also maintained their price target of $2.50.

The analyst said that SNV is now a "high-risk, high-reward" stock, after trading down 54% since their last downgrade in September. FBR noted that SNV has "commerical exposure to work through," and expect "net charge-offs and foreclosure-related expenses to remain elevated for the next several quarters."

FBR states that the shares are trading at a significant discount, now at 0.7x Q310 tangible book value.

Staffing service companies are higher today following the better than expected job loss number. The report is giving hope that soon jobs will be created, which would be a positive for the group:

• Manpower Inc. (NYSE: MAN) +12%
  
• Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MWW) +10.6%
  
• Robert Half International Inc. (NYSE: RHI) +9.4%
  
• Kelly Services Inc. (Nasdaq: KELYA) +9%
  
• TrueBlue, Inc. (NYSE: TBI) +9%
  
• Spherion Corp. (NYSE: SFN) +12%
  
• On Assignment Inc. (Nasdaq: ASGN) +6%

Alcon Inc. (NYSE: ACL) continues to tick higher on speculation Novartis (NYSE: NVS) could buyout the remaining shares they don't control.

A few days ago, UBS made a strong case for such a deal. Today another firm is making similar comments - FTN Equity. UBS said NVS can afford to pay $235.80 per minority share due to the $686 million in synergies a deal would create.

Novartis said they aren't in talks for such a deal, but investors think maybe they should be and are buying up the shares. Even after the denial the shares did not slow down much.

ACL is up 1.3% to $159.82.