MORNING COFFEE

Ford Sells Volvo.  Ford (F) confirmed reports that it has reached an agreement with Chinese auto manufacture Geely to sell it’s Volvo brand.  The deal is set to be completed in  Q2 2010.

Small Banks Need To Free Up Lending.  Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and President Obama told a group of small bank leaders at the White House yesterday that they'd better start lending more. Geithner said the real risk is that "banks are not lending enough and not going to provide the capital businesses need to grow for the economy to strengthen going forward."

Warren Buffett selling Moody’s.  Warren Buffett CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA/BRKB), cut its stake in Moody’s (MCO) for a sixth time since July, to 34%.  The rating agency has been struggling with profit declines, lawsuits and criticism from regulators. Warren Buffett's firm sold 87,992 shares on Dec. 18 at $26.77/share; Berkshire held 48M shares Berkshire at the end of June.

Microsoft Fined.  A federal appeals court upheld a ruling against Microsoft (MSFT) saying it must pay $290M to i4i Inc. for violating a patent related to XML functionality, and must remove the feature from its software by Jan. 11 or pull Microsoft Office from the selves.

Earnings

·  

    Micron Technology (MU) 9.71 +0.30, +3.19% pre market, reported earnings that beat estimates.  The 

    company reported earnings of 0.23 on revenues of 1.74

·   Cintas (CTAS) 29.68 Missed estimates reporting earnings of 0.39. on revenues of 885M.

·   Red Hat (RHT) 29.87 beat their earnings estimate by 0.01 reporting earnings of 0.17 per share.  Revenues 

    came in at 194M.

Today should be a relatively slow day prior to the Christmas Holiday since most traders have left for vacation and few earnings reports are to be released. Economic reports to be released are Personal Spending and the PCE numbers which will give insight into inflation.

·   Futures at 7:00: Dow +0.2% to 10433. S&P +0.4% to 1118. Nasdaq+0.3%.

    Crude +0.4% to $74.67. Gold -0.3% to $1,083.

    Treasurys are down a drop. The dollar is flat vs. euro, yen and pound.

·   Asia: Hang Seng +1.1% to 21329. Shanghai +0.8% to 3074. BSE +3.2%to 17231. Japan was closed.

·   Europe at midday: FTSE +0.8% to 5372. CAC +0.7% to 3925. DAX+0.4% to 5971.