Weekend Reading: Less Inflationary Heat

Good Sunday morning. As always, here are some articles and papers worth reading. First, however, a look back at the week that just finished, and a look forward at the week ahead.

The markets continued their directionless dance. This week the major indices split the difference, with the Dow gaining 1.2% and the S&P 500 rising 0.23%, while the Nasdaq shed 0.03%. Click here for the weekly performance.

Looking ahead, it seems possible all three markets might go in the same direction. The weekend press offered mixed messages about Google, which will wash likely each other out. Lower oil and natural gas prices should be a bigger factor, lessening some of the inflationary heat in the economy. That, in turn, should keep rates under control and increase the likelihood that we're near the end of the current tightening cycle.

Turning to the economic week ahead, the highlight is likely to be the first public econo-talk from new Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. On Wednesday he is scheduled to appear before the House Financial Services Committee, with an encore Thursday in front of the Senate Banking Committee. Meanwhile, a bevy of economic reports is due out this week: January retail sales on Tuesday, the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment data for February on Friday, January housing starts on Thursday and the U.S. producer price index for January on Friday. Whew! With that schedule, Ben's going to have to work hard to get noticed.

Next week is another active one for fourth-quarter results. There are a bunch of retailers reporting, including Office Depot (ODP Quote), JC Penney (JCP Quote), Target (TGT Quote), and RadioShack (RSH Quote). We will also see reports from Dell (DELL Quote) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ Quote). Hey, whatever happened to those PC companies anyway?

Finally, here are some articles and papers worth reading:

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• U.S. prepares military blitz against Iran's nuclear sites. (Telegraph)
• Time magazine has a cover profile of Google, plus an interview. (Time)
• Google grabs half of the booming search market. (Nielsen/Netratings)
• Google's new Gmail for Domains looks like a shot across Microsoft's bow. (Ars Technica)
• Eddie Lampert is the Steve Jobs of the investing world. (Fortune)
• Carol Loomis on General Motors, arguing that the people who got the company into its mess won't get it out. (Fortune)
• Microsoft will spend one-billion dollars to increase its headquarters by one-third: The headquarters syndrome at work? (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Where have all the tech bankers gone? (IDD)
• Barron's calls a market top on Google, citing click fraud and valuation. (Barron's)
• Child-centric consumer electronics is the only hot place in the electronics business (The New York Times)
• Amazon, not Google, is the most financially inscrutable company in technology. (The New York Times)
• The booming billion-dollar sleep market, and the companies benefiting from it. (Forbes)
• The GDP measure, like democracy, is crummy, but it's better than the alternatives. (The Economist)
• Profile of free-market economist Milton Friedman at 93. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• The rise in uranium prices caught most investors by surprise, but can it go further? (The Globe and Mail)
• A possible Wal-mart move into banking has bankers all a-twitter (The Washington Post)
• Bank card re-issues may be linked to a security problem at Wal-Mart. (eWeek)
• Research: A new look at the "hot hand" phenomenon in fund management -- it persists more than previously thought. (NBER)

1 What would best describe your stance heading into the coming week of trading? Bullish Bearish Neutral 2 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move up in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities 3 Which of these sectors do you think is set to move down in the coming week? --Choose One--Aerospace and DefenseAirlinesAutomobilesBeverages and Food ProductsBiotechnologyCommercial BanksComputers and PeripheralsConsumer NondurablesEnergy Equipment & ServicesHMOs and HospitalsHomebuildingInsuranceIntegrated OilInternet, Software ServicesInvestment Bankers and BrokersMediaMultiline RetailPharmaceuticalsPrecious MetalsSemis, Semi EquipmentTelecom EquipmentTobacco and AlcoholWireless CommunicationsUtilities View the results without voting