From Barron's 5-7-07 "The 84-year-old firm has been re-energized by a resurgence in exploration and drilling among oil and gas producers -- driving demand for its offshore platforms and undersea pipelines. Its power-generation unit's emergence from bankruptcy protection last year also is fueling double-digit profit growth...Analysts think McDermott, with its OxyFuel carbon-dioxide separation technology, could be among the winners in the race to provide a commercial solution to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants...Cost-cutting and an integrated portfolio of services give McDermott an industry-leading operating-profit margin of more than 9%. After retiring $250 million of debt in April, the company is virtually debt-free. McDermott had more than $1 billion of cash and equivalents on its balance sheet as of the end of December, some of which management intends to use for acquisitions."

From Barron's 5-7-07 "If nothing else, however, the recent selloff has made WellPoint even more attractive to analysts like Prudential's David Shove. He thinks the stock (ticker: WLP) could hit 100 within 12 months, up 23% from current levels...Shove is optimistic on several scores. First, he contends that the "Blues" boast tremendous brand loyalty in the regions they operate in. Moreover, WellPoint serves a diversity of markets -- from Fortune 500 companies (most of whom pay their own claims but rely on private insurers to administer their programs) to smaller corporate and group plans to individual policyholders, including Medicare and Medicaid patients. Finally, the stock is cheap, selling at just 12.7 times the consensus 2008 earnings forecast of $6.39 a share."

From Barron's 5-7-07 "Although Delta shed about $13 billion of debt and lease obligations, 6,000 people from a workhorse of 53,000 and a mountain of assets including 82 planes during its 19 months in bankruptcy, the Atlanta-based airline has kept the things that made it strong in the past.It has a reasonable route structure and still dominates its local hub airport with an operation considered one of the industry's most valuable assets. Its workhorse is still relatively loyal, enthusiastic and mostly non-union. Many of them are extremely relieved that Chief Executive Gerald Greenstone beat back a takeover attempt by US Airways (LCC), and some are impressed by Greenstone's sharing the pain through pay cuts for himself commensurate with those imposed on workers."

From Barron's 5-7-07 "A Dutch court's freeze on the sale of ABN Amro's LaSalle Bank to Bank of America gives Royal Bank of Scotland and its partners an advantage over rival Barclays in the bidding for ABN. It's also a big win for ABN (ticker: ABN) investors, who now have a choice in deciding the future of their bank, rather than being railroaded into accepting management's preferred option."

From Barron's 5-7-07 "Intel held an impressive meeting with analysts Thursday, in which it showed it isn't going to let Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) steal a march on its microprocessor business any time soon. Several years back, Intel (INTC) got complacent in its processor monopoly and in 2003 AMD began winning market share with superior chips. But Intel is roaring back this year with chips that the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company will produce on the processor industry's most advanced technology. As it shifts its production to transistors with features as small as 45 nanometers (or billionths of a meter) over the next year, Intel will be able to make processors that are either cheaper or more feature-packed than those from AMD."