It's Chocolate-For-Breakfast Day, so we thought we'd take a look at which stocks and sectors are feeling investors' love this morning.
Here's a delightful piece that you might enjoy by Globe columnist David Parkinson:
Funds reporter Shirley Won also examines a long-running relationship:
Other objects of affection today: Metals and mining stocks, after China's trade surplus came in much smaller than expected. That indicates the world's second-largest economy has a strong appetite for raw material imports. Copper rose above $10,000 (U.S.) a tonne and tin hit a record high of $31,900 a tonne.
And what could you expect from Russia, with love? The government's biggest privatisation drive since the collapse of the Soviet Union. That began Monday with the sale of 10 per cent of VTB, the country's second-biggest bank. Its stock had fallen 10 per cent since the end of January and is up about 3 per cent right now.
(By the way, Russia has bucked the trend of outflows from emerging markets this year. Russia-focused funds attracted $267-million last week, according to EPFR data, compared with outflows in China, Brazil and India.)
On the he-loves-me-not side: Nokia and Microsoft Corp. Their shares are falling as analysts at UBS, Nomura, Nordea, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, HSBC and Deutsche Bank pan the two companies' decision to tie the knot on smartphone development.
Nomura analysts said the fact Nokia was so uncertain that it could not give a 2011 outlook made the stock "hard to own" over the next 12 months.
Other technology analysts noted Nokia was now looking at a short-term collapse of consumer demand for its Symbian-based phones which would slam margins -- the phones currently make up around half of Nokia's devices sales.
In the meantime, Nokia had failed to answer questions about the development of new smartphone models, they said. Some pointed out that Microsoft's experience in the mobile phone market did not bode well at all.
Also looking slightly unloved this morning: U.S. stock futures. S&P 500 futures fell 0.5 point and were just below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures dipped 3 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 0.5 point.
Sonali Verma