Market Trends

More news on the E. coli strain outbreak at Taco Bell restaurants… 

Instead of green onions being the culprit, the white onions may be the cause of poisoning. White onions at one of the chain's New York restaurants were found to carry a type of the strain. 

Again, this whole mess, and the spinach debacle before it, just reiterates why the FDA needs to get on the ball and start regulating food from farm to fork. 

Taco Bell reassures the public via its website that no one has gotten sick since December 2 after eating at their restaurants, and that the chain has switched the supplier of its fresh fruits and vegetable for those restaurants in the Northeast that contained tainted food. 

Taco Bell's company Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM:NYSE) (which also owns the KFC, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver and A&W All-American restaurant franchises) is down for the fifth day in a row… 

Trading Tactics

Here is a prime example of the ambiguity of Wall Street.

This morning, shares of Best Buy Co. Inc. (BBY:NYSE) reported disappointing third-quarter results as a "very competitive climate" allowed them to earn $0.31 cents a share - which came up four cents short of Wall Street expectations. As a result, the shares were lower by 6% in early trading. 

 

On the flipside, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS:NYSE) reported a blowout quarter. In fact, for the full year, Goldman posted its best results historically, reporting net earnings of $9.54 billion, or $19.69 a share, on revenue of $37.67 billion. 

Fourth-quarter earnings came in at $6.59 a share, beating the consensus estimate of $6.00 a share by a whopping $0.59! This is especially impressive when you consider that one year ago, GS earned $3.35 a share in the same quarter. 

 

Now here's the thing. On this news, GS also fell in early trading action! So you have two stocks - one with disappointing numbers and the other with blockbuster numbers - and they're each falling. 

Go figure. If that's how Wall Street wants to act, then we better load up on puts now.

Material Profits

Beware the Double Bottom in natural gas... 

Should natural gas prices stabilize here, we could see a nice bump-up of 40% in the next 90 days. Pervasive warmer weather could draw this rise out, however, and cause natural gas stores to remain high. That could further repress the price of natural gas. 

 

One company that'll be watching the price of natural gas closely is our Wildcatter pick. Today, I'll be talking with the CEO about what's coming up next for the company.

I'll have a report for MP Wildcatters this evening, and I'll talk to Market Report readers about domestic drilling companies. 

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