Fertilizers & Agricultural Chemicals

Materials stocks are faring poorly this morning as the dollar gained against the Euro, putting pressure on commodities. Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA), AK Steel (NYSE: AKS), U.S. Steel (NYSE: X), CF Industries (NYSE: CF), and Century Aluminum (NASDAQ: CENX) are all lower by 2% or more in mid-morning trading...

Merger and acquisition activity continues to heat up with 5 new mergers announced last week and two deals closing. The pace of merger activity over the last few weeks combined with an uptick in IPOs (5 new offerings were filed last week) and heavy insider selling have me very worried about this...

Analysts at Thomas Weisel upgrade CF Industries (NYSE: CF) from “market weight” to “overweight.” Shares of CF rose 0.50% to $90.45 during the pre-market session. More Analyst Ratings here.

CSX (NYSE: CSX) chief Michael Ward said that the purchase of Burlington Northern (NYSE: BNI) by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) was a "brilliant" acquisition" move, as the rail industry is rebounding. Shipments have risen after declining for a couple of years and CSX, the third-...

After having its price target lowered to $123.69 by Goldman Sachs this morning, Potash Corp of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) is seeing some protection purchased as well. The September $100 put was purchased 5,000 times on the offer a short while ago; there was effectively no open interest on that strike...

• Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) reported its "best first quarter ever" on increased consumers spending on new computers. Earnings of 43 cents beat Zacks estimates of 38 cents a share and last year's 11 cent profit.  Revenues of $10.3 billion were ahead of Zacks estimates of $9.8 billion and well above prior...

Analysts at Goldman downgrade Potash Inc (NYSE: POT) from "conviction buy" to "neutral." POT’s shares fell 0.88% to close at $28.05 yesterday. More Analyst Ratings here.

California Pizza Kitchen Inc (NASDAQ: CPKI) was downgraded by B Riley from “buy” to “neutral.” CPKI’s shares have jumped 56.65% year to date. Stifel Nicolaus downgraded National Interstate Corporation (NASDAQ: NATL) from “hold” to “sell.” NATL’s shares had lost 2.30% to $19.94 by 12:29 am. The 52-...

• CF Industries (NYSE:CF) announced plans to sell 10.8 million shares for about $1 billion • Tennant Company (NYSE:TNC) said it sees first quarter earnings of 19 cents to 21 cents a share, well above Street estimates of 7 cents, and revenues of between $148 million and $150 million, beating...

US stock futures point to a lower opening today as Alcoa’s unimpressive results have disappointed investors who were looking forward to a power-packed kick-off of the earnings season. Futures on S&P 500 lost 2.8 points to 1189.80, while those on Nasdaq 100 fell 5.75 points to 1986.70. Meanwhile...

In a research report today, analysts from Morgan Joseph said that it appears as if Monsanto's (NYSE: MON) management team has "swallowed a large helping of humility that, we hope, will serve the company down the road." On today's conference call, MON management "threw out its long-range guidance of...

Investors sold stocks and sent broader indices lower on an otherwise listless day after a senior Federal Reserve official said policy makers should not keep interest rates exceptionally low for too long.  Prospects of higher interest rates unsettled traders. With no immediate solution to Greece’s...