” Last August, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. government from its triple-A rating, sparking a plunge in stocks. Robert Prechter, founder of Elliott Wave International, says another downgrade is likely in the cards.

“One is pretty likely eventually, because there’s plenty of [government] borrowing continuing and not much plan about how to pay it back,” he tells Yahoo.

“That’s the normal course of business in terms of governments all over the world. Some are a little faster than others, such as Greece, Spain, and Italy, but we’re in the same pack. Our government spends money it doesn’t have.”

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Oil is rallying silly. Must be short covering at this point since buying for future growth prospects is silly…at least for the short term.

“The world’s largest brewer just got much larger. Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) will buy the half of Grupo Modelo is does not already own. The price is $20.1 billion. Grupo Modelo is based in Mexico, and by some measures has most of the market for beer in that country. It also exports several products that are popular in the United States, such as Corona.”

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Gapping up

ALMOST EVERYTHING THAT TRADES

Gapping down

RIMM -16.8%, NKE -12.3%, TC -5.3%, BCS -5.1%, UA -3.9%, LULU -1.6%, F -1.4%,

DECK -1%,  ANTH -5.4% , THM -3.7% , TMH -7.3%, DKS -1.5%, FL -1%, SHOO -0.2%,

ANTH, BBBY, BLK, BPL, CZR, CELG, EEP, FB, F, LNCR, NKE, ORCL, RIMM, SKS, TTM, TIF, UNP, UHS, WETF, ZUMZ,

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In Play ,

On the Wires 

“Below is Goldman’s quick take on the E-Tarp MOU (completely detail-free, but who needs details when one has money-growing trees) announced late last night. In summary:”

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Sell the rips and buy the dips until concrete evidence is available….

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“TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd delayed the make-or-break launch of its next-generation BlackBerry phones until next year, in a devastating setback to the once-dominant technology company whose sales are crumbling.

Shares in the company, which also announced a steeper-than-expected quarterly operating loss, plunged 18 percent after it said it would release its revamped BlackBerry 10 devices early in 2013, instead of late this year, because the development had “proven to be more time consuming than anticipated.”

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“NEW YORK (Reuters) – The FBI said on Friday it had arrestedPeter Madoff, the younger brother of swindler Bernard Madoff, who is serving a 150-year prison sentence for his multibillion-dollarPonzi scheme.

The arrest of Peter Madoff had been expected as he is due in federal court in Manhattan later Friday to plead guilty to charges related to his brother’s decades-long fraud.”

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“Melrose Plc (MRO), a U.K. investment company focused on engineering companies, agreed to buy Elster Group SE (ELT) for $2.3 billion in cash to access gas- and power- meters for advanced electricity grids.

The $20.50-a-share offer for Elster, partly owned by CVC Capital Partners Ltd., will be funded by a 1.2 billion-pound ($1.9 billion) rights offering and debt, the London-based company said. The offer is 49 percent higher than Elster’s closing price on June 11, the day prior to bid speculation.”

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Gold is up $42 sticks or 3%……

“Micron Technology Inc. (MU) will buy bankrupt Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc. for an estimated 200 billion yen ($2.5 billion), the Nikkei newspaper said.

As much as 140 billion yen of the acquisition price will be used to pay Elpida’s debts, and about 70 percent of the Tokyo- based company’s liabilities won’t be repaid, the Nikkei reported, without saying where it got the information. Micron will invest 100 billion yen in Elpida facilities including its plant in Hiroshima, Japan, to boost output of dynamic random- access memory chips, the report said.”

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“India is likely to face elevated inflation risks from supply bottlenecks and lingering threats to economic expansion, the Reserve Bank of India said.

“Threats to stability are posed by the global sovereign debt problem and risk aversion, domestic fiscal position, widening current-account deficit and structural aspects of food inflation,” the central bank said in its Financial Stability Report released in Mumbai yesterday. While India’s financial system “remains robust,” challenges to stability have increased since the last assessment in December 2011.”

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“Ireland’s bid to avoid a second bailout may be buttressed by what Prime Minister Enda Kennycalled a seismic shift in European policy.

After 13 1/2 hours of talks ending at 4:30 a.m. in Brussels today, leaders of the 17 euro countries opened the door to recapitalizing banks directly with the European Stability Mechanism, instead of through the government, once Europe sets up a single banking supervisor.

“The fundamental principle of the ESM providing the funding to break the link between the sovereign and the bank has now been established,” Kenny said after the summit.”

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“China will make Qianhai, part of the Shenzhen economic zone, a test ground for freer yuan usage and capital account convertibility, the National Development and Reform Commission said today.

Companies in Qianhai will be encouraged to sell yuan- denominated bonds in Hong Kong and to experiment with cross- border loans in the Chinese currency, Zhang Xiaoqiang, the vice chairman of the national planner, said at a press conference in the city today.”

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Income was up 0.2%

Spending was flat coming in @ 0.0%

Hot off the press with markets waiting for you to buy today’s gap up; here are some ideas for your portfolio.

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It seems Merkel just got everything she did not want. Surely her swagger has been reduced to a church mouse walk after this recent EU announcement.

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Aussie & Kiwi dollar risk on story

Currency rates