• How many Paypal account holders are aware that their cash is in a Money Market account that may hold now infamous Asset Backed Securities?
  
  
• I’ve spending an inordinate amount of time trying to dissect which companies are likely to benefit the most from a spike in CapEx spending by cable companies. More specifically, I’ve been focusing on the “Cable Backhaul” issue. This abstract already tells us who the players might be, but after digging around some more I keep coming back only to Ciena (CIEN) as the one I feel comfortable with. Not mentioned but now on my radar screen as possible beneficiaries are Acme Packet (APKT) and Keynote Systems (KEYN).
  
  
• F5 Networks’ (FFIV) acquisition of privately held Acopia Networks was... puzzling? Yes, I’m late catching up to that story (the deal was announced August 6), but from the price action of FFIV it does not look like I missed much. My sense is that in a few quarters this move is going to reveal itself as less than “brilliant”; however, big picture, I much rather buy FFIV at $35 with the overhang of this deal, than at $45 without it. And buying a bit I did, leaving room for more at lower prices.

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• The WSJ today reports that bond issuance surged in August as investment-grade companies replaced non-existent Commercial Paper sales with longer dated bonds. We can only presume that those bonds were more expensive than CP. In an environment of declining revenue growth, and operating expenses already gnawed to the bone, any cost increases are much more likely to start falling to the bottom line – which seems to be the last leg of the market stool.
  
  
• BoA notes that its own measure of homebuilders traffic fell to its lowest level since it started tracking it. I care what BoA says because many moons ago the analyst did a very good job of timing his switch from bullish to bearish.
  
  
• Speaking of BoA, it also upgraded fave FCStone (FCSX) today. If any Minyan has access to the report and cares to share it would be greatly appreciated.

Have a great day Minyans!!