U.S. MARKET AVERAGES

Market early gains at the opening quickly dissolved into losses as oil and natural gas climbed.

Mixed earnings from Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Federated Department drove market to the sideways. As oil made a steady climb and rose above 1% and natural gas rose above 5% at mid-day stock moved in the negative territory.

Wal-Mart (WMT: chart) reported higher earnings but forecasted lower earnings for the coming years on higher interest charges. The company stock declined 36 cents and closed at $45.74. Home Depot (HD: chart) reported 60 cents vs. 47 cents a year ago and beat estimates of 57 cents. The stock’s early gains were lost at market close. Federated (FD: chart) lost $1.23 on lower than expected earnings.

General Motors (GM: chart) lost 2% on the news that Moody’s lowered its rating on senior unsecured debt from B1 to B2.

Market largely ignored the report on Leading Economic Indicators showing widening economic activities. Investors did focus on minutes of Fed Meeting and turned cautious on the read that Fed is likely to raise interest rates in the coming months.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Evergreen Solar (ESLR: chart) received a $100 million four-year supply deal with Germany''s S.A.G. Solarstrom AG. Evergreen will ship about $100 million of photovoltaic modules to S.A.G., which operates solar power stations. The stock jumped 6.7%.

MeriStar Hospitality (MHX: chart) agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of the private equity firm Blackstone Group for about $2.6 billion. Under the terms of the deal each share of MeriStar common stock and each unit of limited partnership interest in MeriStar''s operating partnership, will be converted into the right to receive $10.45 in cash. The deal is expected to close in Q2 of 2006. The company’s shares gained 3.7%.

Atari Inc (ATAR: chart) said it will cut 20% of its workforce worldwide as part of a previously announced plan to cut costs and dispose of non-core assets, among other actions. The company’s shares gained 4%.

Haverty Furniture (HVT: chart), home furnishings retailer, posted Q4 profit drop of $6.8 million, or 30 cents a share from $8.7 million, or $38 cents a year ago, missing estimates of 31 cents. The company said profit was hurt by higher energy and transportation costs. Sales for the quarter rose to $225.6 million from $216.8 million in last year''s fourth quarter. The stock dropped 6%.

ECONOMIC NEWS

The Conference Board released its report on leading economic indicators in the month of January on Tuesday. The report showed that the agency''s index of leading indicators rose much more than economists had anticipated.

The report showed that the index surged up by 1.1 percent in January after an upwardly revised increase of 0.3 percent in December. Economists had expected a more modest increase of 0.6 percent compared to the 0.1 percent increase originally reported for December.

The Conference Board said that the increase by the index in January was largely due to a decrease in initial jobless claims and increases in real money supply and building permits.

The report also showed that the coincident index, a measure of current economic activity, increased by 0.2 percent in January.

The Conference Board noted that the coincident index has been on a relatively steady upward trend since April 2003, although it pointed out that this trend moderated somewhat in the second half of 2005.

INTERNATIONAL MARKETS NEWS

Asian-Pacific benchmarks finished Tuesday session mixed. The Nikkei soared 3% to 15,894.04 on evidence of economic improvement. Among the other regional gainers, Shanghai Composite climbed 1.7%, Singapore Straits Times advanced 0.5%., and Australia’s All Ordinaries rose 0.9%. On the losing side stood South Korea’s Kospi, down 1% and Taiwan’s Weighted index, down 0.8%.

European stocks closed off intraday highs after weakness on Wall Street erased earlier gains. On Tuesday averages reached multi-year highs, boosted by strong utilities which rallied on a bidding war starts for the Spanish Endesa. The German DAX 30 gained 0.1%, the French CAC 40 added 0.2%, and London’s FTSE 100 declined 0.09%.

OIL, METALS, CURRENCIES