DOW SURGES, OIL SLIDES: Here's What You Need To Know (EGPT, SPY, QQQQ, NFLX, OIL, GLD)

It was kind of an indecisive, unsatisfying end to the month. That's okay, March is going to be craaaaazy.

Dow: +96.99
NASDAQ: 1.16
S&P 500: +7.07

And now, the top stories:

• Without wasting your time, we'll just point out that it was another crazy weekend across the Middle East/North Africa region (MENA) that saw riots spread to Oman, which caused the Saudi market to get crushed in Sunday trading.

• Nothing too special happened in Asian trading. Shanghai and India both rose.

• Same with European trading. The Irish market didn't do anything too wild following the Irish election.

• And in the US it was fairly quiet as well. Oil was up earlier, but slid on the day. Gold didn't go anywhere. The dollar clubbed in the early going, but came back a bit. The Dow was strong, but some big momentum tech names like Netflix had a bad day.

• There were two big economic datapoints today. Income and spending was mixed. Chicago PMI was rather strong. The news prompted Deutsche Bank to slash its GDP estimate.

• Interesting: The Egypt ETF got crushed today, ahead of the opening of the Egyptian stock market, which is scheduled for tomorrow. Click here to see the 11 countries at risk of becoming the next Egypt >

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Creator Of Angry Birds? Physics Engine Calls Out Rovio For Not Giving Him Credit

Aaaawkwaaard! I'm not at this week's Game Developer Conference in San Francisco for various reasons (the main one being that I've been covering events non-stop for nearly two months and my body is falling apart), but we're keeping a pretty close eye on things just in case. We're hearing that things just got a little dramatic in the "ANGRY BIRDS - An Entertainment Franchise in the Making" panel headed by Rovio's "Might Eagle" (read: head honcho) Peter Vesterbacka.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/JCJ4vdf6IXc/

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The One Rising Number That Could Crush A Housing Recovery Before It Even Begins

The rebound in the U.S. housing market has failed to materialize and it may be squahed by yet another factor before it even gets off the ground, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Jonathan Ellis.

That number isn't rising interest rates, though those surely count, but rather the increasing FICO score (credit score) requirement for prospective home buyers.

From Bank of America Merrill Lynch (emphasis ours):

Although we do not expect any material changes in the form of significantly higher premiums (beyond the 25bp already announced) or a raised down payment requirement, we do think underwriting standards could be tightened. The average FICO score for FHA insured borrowers ticked up to 703 in January after being at 701 for the past three months below 700 prior to that. Although this increase may be reflective of borrower mix more so than a change in underlying standards, we do think a continued rise in average FICO scores would present the risk of cancellations for the homebuilders if prospective buyers have difficulties qualifying for an FHA insured mortgage.

While it is presumed an improving economic situation will eventually leak over into higher FICO scores for potential homebuyers, there's no indication that will happen fast enough to prevent more downward pressure on the housing market.

Don't miss: Why Bill Ackman thinks now is the time to buy a house >

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMoneyGame/~3/Pv9JQsI2KCo/fico-score-us-housing-market-2011-2

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AppBoy Releases A Check-in SDK For iOS Apps

With the number of iOS apps now well over 300,000, app discovery is becoming an increasing frustration for users. It's also become a major challenge for developers as the increasing number of apps is making it more and more difficult for them to attain exposure for their apps. Now, straight from the "What Took So Long for Something Like This to be Released" department, mobile developer community site AppBoy has released an iOS app check-in SDK.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/y0KudZuFPKM/

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Major Iraq Oil Refinery Closed After Terrorist Attack

An attack using an improvised explosive device has shut down (for now, not permanently) an oil refinery in the Iraq city of Baiji.

One was killed in the blast.

According to Al-Jazeera, the refinery had 290K barrel/day potential, though was only operating at 70% capacity.

Iraq is heating up, in yet another crisis for the rest of the world to worry about.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMoneyGame/~3/5_EhF-WBW-g/major-iraq-oil-refinery-closed-after-terrorist-attack-2011-2

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The Most Important Question To Ask When Investing In China

"Does it contribute to social harmony?"  is the most important question that any investors should ask when investing in China, according to BofA/ML's David Cui.

In a piece this week, he wrote:

On Feb 19, at the opening ceremony of a high profile study session for the most senior provincial officials at the Party School of the Central Committee of CPC (CCPS), President Hu emphasized that the government should do whatever it can to ensure social harmony. It seems to us that the concept of “harmonious society” is back (''The visible hand”, 23 Jul 2010) and we suspect that what is happening in the Middle East has played a major role in this. In our opinion, in the foreseeable future, government policies will be mainly be drivenby their impact on.

So what do this mean in practice? Cui identifies a few ideas.

The first is that China is going to get much more aggressive about food inflation -- not necessarily about price controls, which don't work, but through more subsidies to farmers in order to expand supply. A more serious crackdown on property prices, possibly leading to a sharp drop in some places. More hikes in the minimum wage are probably coming as well.

Outside of the price sphere, things like food safety and more stable pensions will also be a priority.

And in terms of companies affected, this is interesting:

 Another key complaint about the income gap in China is the high salaries being paid to many in the monopoly sectors – their profitability is often not achieved via better management and business strategy but through government protection including license requirements. In addition,
consumers are paying unnecessarily high prices. Unfortunately, such monopolies dominate the market, another reason behind our medium term cautious view on the stock market.

Click here to see 17 facts about China that will blow your mind >

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheMoneyGame/~3/VU_o0EY1c1E/the-most-important-question-to-ask-when-investing-in-china-2011-2

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