IBD's Top 10 - Tuesday

• Investor's Business Daily
• On 7:00 pm EDT, Tuesday October 6, 2009

Gold At New High As Dollar Falls

1 Dec. gold shot up $21.90 to $1039.70 an ounce, hitting a record $1,045 intraday. It's still less than half its '80 inflation-adjusted peak. The dollar fell after a U.K. report of Arab nations and others having secretly met to ditch the greenback for oil sales. They denied it. Australia's rate hike also hit the dollar.

Big Indexes Shine On Optimism

2 On the eve of the unofficial start to Q3 earnings season, the Dow and S&P 500 rose 1.4%, the NYSE composite 1.5% and the Nasdaq 1.7%. Volume picked up vs. Mon. Australia's rate hike buoyed confidence in the global economy. It also helped sink the dollar, which has been a recipe for higher stocks. Gold groups shot up with prices. 191 of IBD's 197 industries climbed.

Australia Is First To Raise Rates

3 The Aussie central bank unexpectedly hiked its key cash rate by a quarter-point 15 3.25% and hinted more loom. Australia's economy has recovered quickly, due to Chinese commodity demand. It's the first G-20 nation to raise rates post-crisis. The Fed has stressed that it'll keep rates near 0% for a long time, encouraging traders to sell dollars for foreign assets.

Yum's EPS Tops; Outlook Hiked

4 The owner of Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut said after hours that Q3 EPS rose 21% to 70 cents ex items, beating views by 12 cents. Sales fell 2% to $2.78 bil, just below forecasts. Yum Brands (NYSE:YUM - News) was helped by 11% system sales growth in China and a 4% gain in other overseas markets that offset a 5% drop in the U.S. Yum hiked its '09 EPS target to $2.14 vs. views of $2.13. Shares rose late.

Obama Confers On Afghanistan

5 Pres. Obama met with a bipartisan group of congressional leaders on the Afghan war as he mulls whether to send more U.S. troops there. His recently appointed commander of Western forces said the alternative is chaos and defeat. But top Dems, including VP Joe Biden, oppose the idea; the rising death toll is sapping public support.

Verizon, Google In Android Pact

6 Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon (NYSE:VZ - News) and Vodafone (NYSE:VOD - News), will sell 2 smart phones with Google's (NasdaqGS:GOOG - News) Android platform in '09, in a deal that may lead to multiple co-developed devices a year. They're fighting Apple's (NasdaqGS:AAPL - News) iPhone and AT&T (NYSE:T - News), which has exclusive U.S. iPhone rights. Also, Microsoft (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) launched Windows Mobile 6.5.

Retail Group Sees Bleak Holidays

7 Nov.-Dec. holiday retail sales will fall 1% to $437.6 bil as high unemployment saps consumer confidence, said the Nat'l Retail Federation. Other forecasts have been more optimistic. Most big chains -- but not Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT - News) -- will report Sept. sales figures on Thu. Analysts expect a 13th straight month of lower same-store sales vs. a year earlier.

Delay, Charge For Boeing 747-8

8 The aerospace giant pushed back the first flight of its 747-8 Freighter to early '10 from Q4, the 2nd delay this year. Boeing (NYSE:BA - News) also delayed deliveries to Q4 '10. It'll take a $1 bil charge due to high production costs and the tough market. Boeing has had to delay its 787 Dreamliner repeatedly. Also, Boeing's Q3 commercial jet deliveries shot up to 113 planes. Boeing shares rose 1 cent.

Emerson Electric To Buy Avocent

9 Industry conglomerate Emerson (NYSE:EMR - News) will pay $1.2 bil -- $25 a share -- for the software management firm to expand its energy efficiency businesses. Avocent (NasdaqGS:AVCT - News) makes hardware and software for running data centers for Yahoo (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) and others. Avocent jumped 21% to 24.86. Emerson, which expects the deal to boost fiscal 2010 sales by $400 mil but cut EPS by 10 cents, rose 1%.

Masters Of Light Win Nobel Prize

10 Fiber optics pioneer Charles Kao, a China-born British-American, won half the Nobel Prize in physics for figuring out how to transmit light over long distances via glass fibers. Willard Boyle, a Canadian-American, and George Smith of the U.S. shared the other half for inventing a sensor for capturing digital images, leading to the cameras in many devices today.

Buzz up!