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Market Wrap
(Briefing):

The market languished on Monday ahead of Tuesday's FOMC meeting and the fiscal third quarter earnings report from Lehman Bros. (LEH 58.62, -0.88), which kicks off a series of reports from the investment banking group this week.

There were some news items that contributed to the malaise, such as Microsoft (MSFT 28.73, -0.32) losing its appeal of the EU's 2004 antitrust ruling, Northern Rock, one of the U.K.'s largest mortgage lenders, seeing a run on its branches by depositors worried about the firm's financial state, and Bank of America (BAC 49.51, -0.44) acknowledging late in the session that the credit market turmoil is expected to have a "meaningful impact" on its third quarter investment banking results.

Those items fueled some profit taking after last week's strong advance in which the S&P 500 gained 2.1%.

For the most part, it was a wait-and-see trade. The latter point was borne out in the low volume totals at the NYSE and Nasdaq.

There was only one economic sector - energy (+0.04%) - that ended the day higher. That sector's relative strength came on the back of a strong jump in crude prices (+$1.47 to $80.57), which followed a report that Goldman Sachs raised its year-end forecast to $85 from $72 and noted the risk of prices going as high as $90 by year-end.

The remaing sectors didn't suffer any material damage as losses ranged from 0.1% to 0.8%. It just so happened the some of the day's biggest laggards were also among the market's most influential areas, namely financial (-0.8%), consumer discretionary (-0.8%), health care (-0.7%), technology (-0.5%) and industrials (-0.5%).

Winning standouts in the session were limited largely to individual issues with specific news. For instance, Newell Rubbermaid (NWL 28.02, +2.26) and Monsanto (MON 75.44, +1.94) both jumped after raising their earnings guidance; meanwhile, General Motors (GM 35.23, +1.01) outperformed on reports that negotiations with the UAW on health care costs are progressing well. On a related note, Ford (F 8.28, +0.25) got a boost from a Bear Stearns upgrade to Outperform from Peer Perform.

The Empire State Index was the only economic release Monday. The regional manufacturing report was weaker than expected at 14.7 (consensus 18.0) and down from last month's reading of 25.1. Any number above zero, though, still reflects growth, so the report wasn't as bad as the headline decline suggests.

Tuesday the big event is the FOMC meeting. The Fed's decision and accompanying directive will be released at 14:15 ET.

Prior to the FOMC, the Lehman Bros. report will hold some market-moving sway. The investment bank is expected to post a profit of $1.52 on revenue of $4.35 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. In the year-ago period Lehman earned $1.57 per share on revenue of $4.18 billion.

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Trade system guidelines (edited):
Only available to Newsletter Subscribers.

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Today's Picks - September 18 2007

1.   SYNA - Synaptics Inc

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-18-07		Long	Above 15 high	Sell 1/2 once risk covered	Below LOD at time of setup
	* Please Note: If the stock gaps down at the open do not enter the trade unless it trades above 46.10

2.   AMT - American Tower Corp

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-18-07		Long	Above 15 high	Sell 1/2 once risk covered	Below LOD at time of setup
	* Please Note: If the stock gaps down at the open do not enter the trade unless it trades above 40.67

3.   SIGM - Sigma Designs Inc

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-18-07		Long	Above 15 high	Sell 1/2 once risk covered	Below LOD at time of setup
	* Please Note: If the stock gaps down at the open do not enter the trade unless it trades above 46.34

4.   TV - Grupo Televisa

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-18-07		Long	Above 15 high	Sell 1/2 once risk covered	Below LOD at time of setup
	* Please Note: If the stock gaps down at the open do not enter the trade unless it trades above 24.92

Previous Trades

MIR - Mirant Corp

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
		Long	Above 15 high	Sell 1/2 once risk covered	Below LOD at time of setup
	* did not setup

UTX - United Technologies Corp

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
		Long	Above 15 high	Sell 1/2 once risk covered	Below LOD at time of setup
	* did not setup

K - Kellogg Co

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-17-07		Long	56.28	56.69	Below 55.71	up to + 30 cents per share (56.58)
	* 09-13-07 - stock gapped down

HCBK - Hudson City Bancorp

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-14-07		Long	14.65	Reached (14.69)	Below 14.75	up to + 28 cents per share (14.93)

JEC - Jacobs Engineering Group

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-13-07	09-17-07	Long	70.07	Reached (70.39)	Closed Below 70.07	up to + $1.76 per share (71.83)
	* 09-14-07 - the stock gapped down past our stop at the open forcing us to set an emergency stop just below 69.88 (15min low). The emergency stop held keeping us in the trade.

SMTC - Semtech

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-12-07	09-17-07	Long	18.63	Reached (18.75)	Closed Below 18.83	up to + 77 cents per share (19.40)
	* 09-13-07 - stock gapped down

ICE - IntercontinentalExchange Inc

Entry Date	Exit Date	Position	Entry Price	Target Price	Stop Price	Max P/L
09-06-07		Short	140.03	Reached (138.04)	Above 128.88	up to + $14.33 per share (125.70)
	* 09-06-07 - stock gapped up