Two Stocks That Have Me Worried

Despite the market being up over 1.5%, I still see a couple of situations that have me worried. I'm all for seeing the market rise b/c that means the majority of stocks AND mutual funds will make money on that day...HOWEVER I dont let myself get caught up in the emotional side of seeing a lot of green as opposed to red b/c you always need to disect the markets to see what might be going on "beneath" the overlying market action. Case in point: Petrobras (PBR) and Intel (INTC). Those are my two worries -- and I am worried. The idea that we can whistle past the graveyard of the personal computer space is pretty darned cavalier if you ask me, yet that's just what we are doing when we ignore Intel's profit warning. Petrobras? This oil and gas company used to be worth $350 billion not long ago. Now it is a tenth of that. But it has billions upon billions of dollars in debt and it is struggling mighty to pay the interest. When I see a company this big flailing, I want to know who owns the debt and how vulnerable those holders are. Did they reposition into some strength today, or are they going to be the next Long Term Capital, a levered hedge fund that almost brought down the U.S. banking system 17 years ago? Too extreme? No, you are paid to worry in this line of work and I think that just because the dollar went down today and retail sales were weaker -- keeping the Fed at bay for a day (meaning that they won't raise rates anytime soon) -- it doesn't mean tomorrow the dollar will strengthen and the Fed will be back in play. Tomorrow we get the downgrades in Intel, Microsoft (MSFT) and the others in that complex. Tomorrow we get new worries about another down day in oil. Tomorrow we focus on the banks that aren't doing that well and the other international companies that are being hurt by a strong dollar. No, I am not being a debbie downer. But when I think a PBR these days, I am thinking about a Petrobras bond or other bonds/companies in the energy sector, not the cold beverage -- and that piece of bond paper is contagious and could wreck havoc on the markets. So enjoy the aberration. I bet our regularly scheduled strong-dollar-Fed-to-raise-rates-imminently program will be right back tomorrow or at least in the near term... Oh and not to mention the VOLATILITY (massive swings up and down in the markets) is absolutely ridiculous and nothing I've seen in a long long time...kind of scary when the markets can be up 150 or 200 or even 300 points and then be down 150-200 points the very next day...