Today's Key Market News - Dollar Limbo

(Stocks in article: NYSE: NKE, NYSE: MAT, NYSE: GM, Nasdaq: AAPL, Nasdaq: ORCL, NYSE: ABN, NYSE: BCS)

How low can you go? Limbo lower now... That's the song the dollar is dancing to these days, same as yesterday and the day before. Things are exacerbated now though, with the Fed cutting rates by a half point. While the economy gets a boost, as U.S. participants can borrow at more attractive rates (theoretically), and while American exporters benefit from more competitive offerings overseas and in currency conversion back to dollars, there remains risk to both inflation and foreign investment in the U.S.

As perception turns to panic, Wall Street Greek suspects foreign investors will increasingly look to Europe over the U.S. for investment of their capital. In turn, we will have to offer treasuries at higher rates to attract buyers, thus having the opposite effect than that intended. Inflation is at risk, and the economy still teeters on a longer term cliff.

If I were a betting man, I might venture to suspect Nicholas Sarkozy could be a CIA agent. The guy is actively pushing for a euro rate cut, totally against the wishes of his fellow Frenchman, Jean-Claude Trichet, who heads up the ECB. Sarkozy's positions are so pro-American, it's quite a shock for us. It's like we are going through Jacques Chirac withdrawal or something. The ECB is set on a path of rate hike, while the U.S. is cutting, not good for the dollar/euro trade-off.

As we suspected, the binge drinking ahead of the Fed cut led to a hangover yesterday, and now the market asks, "what's next?" In today's key news below, we are slowly being proven correct that the risk in owning Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), because of its iconic leader's decision-making regarding options, could end up outweighing the benefit from the company's pioneering product innovation. Jobs was subpoenaed yesterday, and that's undeniably a bad thing. Sorry Apple fans... In other tech news, Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) kept up the solid trend of large-cap tech, posting a strong EPS report.

We were wondering if most Americans were as angry as we were to see the headline, "Mattel (NYSE: MAT) apologizes to China for toy recall." Jeez! Just when the Greek thought there was nothing worse for Mattel's public image than selling toys covered in lead paint, Mattel's management team comes up with one better. Hey Mattel, how about apologizing to the American mothers who trusted you?!? Mattel looks like a good short, and I do not even care what the valuation is. When it comes to their children, American parents don't f#$k around. Please feel free to comment about this in the section below this article.

The UAW is playing hardball with General Motors (NYSE: GM), but is the union willing to risk putting the automaker out of business and losing its best U.S. employer for good? We wonder who has the position of strength in this weak tug of war. A war of a attrition is good for nobody here.

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