The Dow Jones industrial average briefly hit the milestone Friday for the first time in 18 months before closing at 10,997.
But Wall Street analysts who study key stock index levels say all the attention paid to 11,000 is more like a big distraction. They worry that investors are ignoring another number at their peril: The surprisingly low volume of trading. As stocks have risen over the past year, the volume reflects the vulnerability of a rally riding on the shoulders of relatively few participants.
And thats given pause even to the bulls.
“It worries a lot of us,” says Wellington Shields Frank - - - - >

The message: Lilly must pick up the pace of drug development so it can replace revenue lost when three top- selling medicines lose patent protection in the next few years, Lechleiter said in an interview in his Indianapolis office. The company stands to lose $10 billion in annual sales to generic competition by the end of 2016, almost half of its 2009 revenue, one of the steepest percentage losses resulting from patent expirations among the six biggest U.S. drugmakers.
Pfizer Inc., the buyer of Wyeth, and Merck - - - - >

Oil dropped from a four-week high as the U.S. currency extended gains against the euro, damping investor demand for commodities. The American Petroleum Institute said U.S. gasoline inventories rose last week to the highest since March 1999 and distillate fuel stockpiles ended a four-week drawdown. An Energy Department report today is forecast to show crude oil supplies increased, according to a Bloomberg News survey.
“Demand in the U.S. is still really weak,” said Hannes Loacker, an analyst with Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich in Vienna. “Todays figures will be - - - - >

Buffetts company sold 26 percent of its stake in Johnson & Johnson, 9 percent of its Procter & Gamble, and 34 percent of oil producer ConocoPhillips, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The stocks were the same ones Buffett sold a year earlier to fund investments in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Buffett later told shareholders he “very much liked” the Goldman Sachs and GE investments, while confessing he “would have - - - - >

Buffetts company sold 26 percent of its stake in Johnson & Johnson, 9 percent of its Procter & Gamble, and 34 percent of oil producer ConocoPhillips, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The stocks were the same ones Buffett sold a year earlier to fund investments in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Buffett later told shareholders he “very much liked” the Goldman Sachs and GE investments, while confessing he “would have - - - - >

Buffetts company sold 26 percent of its stake in Johnson & Johnson, 9 percent of its Procter & Gamble, and 34 percent of oil producer ConocoPhillips, the Omaha, Nebraska-based company said yesterday in a regulatory filing. The stocks were the same ones Buffett sold a year earlier to fund investments in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and General Electric Co. at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Buffett later told shareholders he “very much liked” the Goldman Sachs and GE investments, while confessing he “would have - - - - >

Micron will issue 140 million shares to Numonyxs investors — Intel Corp., STMicroelectronics NV and Francisco Partners — according to a statement yesterday. Boise, Idaho-based Micron will also give as many as 10 million additional shares to Numonyx shareholders if a decline in the stock price pares the deals payout.
The transaction vaults Micron into the market for Nor-type flash chips, which go into mobile phones. Chief Executive Officer Steve Appleton is using the acquisition to lessen the companys dependence on personal-computer memory and step up competition - - - - >

“This is certainly lower than my best estimate would have been,” said Rose Marie Orens, a senior partners at Compensation Advisory Partners in New York. “There was a very definite decision that they werent going to have the discussion be all about them and pay.”
Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, this year cut the percentage of revenue earmarked for pay to the lowest in a decade as a public company. The New York-based firm aimed to allay anger about banks whose - - - - >

But the statistics and stories over the last two years make a case that it is: Since the housing crisis began, this inland port city 80 miles east of San Francisco has had one of the worst foreclosure rates in the country - for most of the time, the worst.
At the height of it, about 1 in 10 houses fell to foreclosure. Houses that sold for more than $500,000 before the crash now go for $200,000. In some neighborhoods, fixer-uppers cost less than a new Honda Fit - under $20,000.
To spend time in Stockton, a plain-jane city of single-family home - - - - >

Rosenfeld is in her fifth month of pursuing an 11 billion- pound ($18 billion) hostile takeover offer, which Cadbury has rejected as “derisory.” Stitzer has predicted increased growth as an independent company. Rosenfeld says Kraft can achieve “top-tier” performance regardless of the outcome.
“If this Cadbury deal does not happen, I think shes certainly lost some credibility,” Christopher Growe, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. in St. Louis, said in a phone interview. “Shes going to be held to a very high standard.” - - - - >