MORNING UPDATE: brokersXpress, LLC Issues Alerts for PG, NTAP, GPS, MXIM, and COH

CHICAGO, Aug. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- brokersXpress, LLC issues the following Morning Update at 8:30 AM EDT with new PriceWatch Alerts for key stocks.

Before the open... PriceWatch Alerts for PG, NTAP, GPS, MXIM, and COH, Market Overview, Today's Economic Calendar, and the Quote Of The Day.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The economic environment is becoming less friendly for many companies and the potential for considerable gains in earnings in the next quarters is lower."

-- David Joy, vice president capital markets strategy, American Express Asset Management

New PriceWatch Alerts for PG, NTAP, GPS, MXIM, and COH... PRICEWATCH ALERTS - HIGH RETURN COVERED CALL OPTIONS -- Procter & Gamble Co. Last Price 55.32 - JAN 55.00 CALL OPTION@ $2.50 -> 4.1 % Return assigned* -- Network Appliance, Inc. Last Price 26.01 - SEP 25.00 CALL OPTION@ $2.20 -> 5.0 % Return assigned* -- Gap Inc. Last Price 21.33 - DEC 20.00 CALL OPTION@ $2.10 -> 4.0 % Return assigned* -- Maxim Integrated Products Inc. Last Price 42.00 - NOV 40.00 CALL OPTION@ $3.60 -> 4.2 % Return assigned* -- Coach Inc. Last Price 35.55 - SEP 35.00 CALL OPTION@ $2.15 -> 4.8 % Return assigned*

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NEWS LEADERS AND LAGGARDS

So far today, Career Education Corp., Comcast Corp., and MBIA Inc. lead the list of companies with the most news stories while Tyco International and Coach Inc. are showing a spike in news. Emerson Electric, Chevron, and PPL Corp. have the highest srtIndex scores to top the list of companies with positive news while Sirius Satellite Radio and Brooks Automation lead the list of companies with negative news reports. Titanium Metals has popped up with a high positive news sraIndex score.

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MARKET OVERVIEW

European markets gained ground as oil prices stayed around $61 per barrel and positive earnings were announced. German retail chain, Metro AG, took the lead in the earnings world, announcing second-quarter, pre-tax earnings of 0.43 euros per share on sales that came in 3.6-percent higher. J.P. Morgan stated that Metro "is now one of the cheapest stocks in the sector and remains an attractive long-term story." Fellow German company, Continental AG saw its second-quarter earnings increase to 252.5 million euros from 131.1 million euros in the previous year. Continental stated that it expects to increase sales and operating profit in the year. Currently, 13 of the 15 foreign markets we track are positive with an average return of 0.306.

The September contract on sweet crude oil spiked 1.65 percent higher yesterday. Oil prices have settled down this morning, helping urge stock futures higher in early-morning trade. Crude has dropped roughly one percent to $61 per barrel ahead of tomorrow's oil inventory data. Yesterday, the front-month contract jumped as high as $62.30 after the death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd.

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DYNAMIC MARKET OPPORTUNITIES

Oil prices topped US$61 a barrel early Monday morning, as the global markets digested the news of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. However, Crown Prince Abdullah, Fahd's half-brother who's been in charge since Fahd's stroke in 1995, will succeed him, so it's unlikely that there will be a significant effect on oil as Abdullah is widely expected to leave Saudi Arabia's oil policy unchanged. The Red Zone Profits investment group recently secured an exclusive interview with John R. Bradley, a British journalist who served as editor at Saudi Arabia's English-language Arab News. Bradley spent two years in Saudi Arabia and was the only Western journalist given free roam of the kingdom after 9/11. Bradley says: "You have to remember that the Saudi regime is in the arthritic grip of some very old people -- and the older they get, the fewer signs they show of ever letting go. But they're also not going to learn any new tricks, and are still applying the remedies of a time before terror and satellite television and the Internet and population explosion to the grim realities of today. Every six months or so, they make out that they've reformed their financial system and judiciary overnight, all of it accompanied by a huge fanfare in the local media, which seem quite oblivious that they made the exact same preposterous claims last year and the year before that. There is a deep-seated belief in the ruling family that saying something does make it so. In other words, the system is ossifying rapidly, and once it has ossified it will crumble. So the question is less whether the Saudis will fall, but when, and if there is any hope of the country surviving and making something like an orderly transition to a modern society."

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TODAY'S ECONOMIC CALENDAR 7:45 AM Jul 30 ICSC Store Sales Index 8:30 AM June Personal Income 8:30 AM June Personal Spending 8:55 AM Jul 30 Redbook Retail Sales Index 10:00 AM June Factory Orders 5:00 PM Jul 30 ABC/Washington Post Consumer Confidence Index

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