- Market Commentary -

March 11, 2010 (FinancialWire) (By Bob Farley) — A recent PBS Nature program talked at length about the food chain and what happened when it was broken, at either end or the middle. The different but similar kind of food chain is troubling hospitals today, and that will spell trouble for health care services companies like Tenet Healthcare (NYSE: THC), which lost a penny yesterday amid an outstanding gain overall in the NYSE.

Hospitals are tasked with serving the uninsured, a job they’ve always done by jacking up prices to people who can pay, the insured, and the insurers. In a screwball dance of overcharges, underpayments, winks and nudges, hospitals get enough to survive another day or week, month or year.

The part of the insurance food chain breaking down now is the number of insured people falling. Many have lost jobs that once gave them insurance, and as anyone without a job and sufficient income can attest, insurance ain’t cheap.

With that piece of the food chain broken, look for the next biggest link–the hospitals–to begin failing, unless of course it gets some help. And you know it’s going to happen. As it should, probably. Without a few disasters, nothing will happen to fix the health-care problem.

[Go to http://www.financialwire.net/?s=bob+farley to see more commentaries and articles by Bob Farley.]

The FirstAlert(tm) “Money Index” is an indicator of the depth of market direction or indirection. While not always including the same stocks, the combined NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX 25 Most Actives and combined NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX greatest Percentage Losers and Percentage Winners (weighted against pure monetary loss/gain) indicate the direction in which the mass of money is flowing, as well as the general focus of the market. The most recently published FirstAlert(tm) Money Index Synopses are accessible via FinancialWire.net (at http://www.financialwire.net/?s=index+synopsis).  The data providing the basis for the FirstAlert(tm) Money Index is provided courtesy of Stock Smart, and complete Stock Smart charts and closing summaries are directly accessible via a dedicated Investrend.com webpage (at http://www.investrend.com/fa-index).

The FirstAlert(tm) Economics Calendar lists International Trade for January (8:30 a.m.), Initial Jobless Claims (8:30 a.m.), Treasury auctions 30-year bonds (1 p.m.).

The FirstAlert(tm) Events Calendar showcases ACM, CBI, URS, MDR at UBS Engineering & Construction One-on-One Conference; BMTI Analyst and Investor Meeting; CBRX, GILD, TSON, LGND at Cowen and Company Healthcare Conference; CERN Investor Community Meeting; CPN, EXC, WR at Morgan Stanley Utilities Conference; ENOC at CERAWeek 2010; HELE, BONT, NILE, PNRA at Bank of America Merrill Lynch Consumer Conference; IT Investor Day; NYB, HBAN, PNC, SNV at Citi Financial Services Conference; RGC, CNK, CKEC, IMAX at Gabelli & Company, Inc. Digital Cinema & Movie Conference; SONS, ATHR, CRNT at Credit Suisse Communication Equipment & Networking Conference; STEC, SHOR, KOPN, SY at Wedbush Morgan Securities New York MAC: Management Access Conference; V Investor Day.

FirstAlert(tm) Website of the Day: http://www.islandsministries.com

Quote of the Day: “I asked a ref if he could give me a technical foul for thinking bad things about him. He said, of course not. I said, well, I think you stink. And he gave me a technical. You can’t trust ‘em.” Jim Valvano

Today is: Johnny Appleseed Day.

Happy Birthday: Malcolm Campbell, Dorothy Gish, Lawrence Welk, Rupert Murdoch, Sam Donaldson, Antonin Scalia, Bobby McFerrin, Christopher Rice, Thora Birch.

Today in History: The first regular English-language newspaper, The Daily Courant, was published in London in 1702. Army Corps of Engineers for the United States was authorized by the Congress in 1779. The United States War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1824. British citizen Henry Jones invented self-raising flour in 1845. The Great Blizzard of 1888 began along the eastern seaboard of the United States, shutting down commerce and killing more than 400. In New York City, Samuel Roxy Rothafel opened the Roxy Theatre in 1927. Former Beatle Paul McCartney was knighted in 1997. Infosys became in 1999 the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

[FirstAlert(tm) was created by Gayle Essary, founder of Investrend Communications, Inc., parent of Investrend Information. The opinions expressed in FirstAlert(tm) do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Investrend.]

FinancialWire(tm) is committed to serving the financial community through true journalism and providing relevant resources to investors. Standards-based, independent equity research on numerous public companies is available through the Investrend Research Syndicate (http://www.investrend.com/reports) written by FIRST Research Consortium (http://www.investrend.com/FIRST) member-providers. Free annual reports and company filings for companies mentioned in the news are available through the Investrend Information Syndicate (at http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279). FinancialWire(tm), in cooperation with the Investrend Broadcast Syndicate, also provides complete, daily conference call and webcast schedules as a service to shareholders and investors via the FirstAlert(tm) Network’s “FirstAlert(tm) Daily” (http://www.financialwire.net/news-alerts/).

FinancialWire(tm) is a fully independent, proprietary news wire service. FinancialWire(tm) is not a press release service, and receives no compensation for its news, opinions or distributions. Further disclosure is at the FinancialWire(tm) website  (http://www.financialwire.net/disclosures.php). Contact FinancialWire(tm) directly via inquiries@financialwire.net.

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.