UBS (NYSE:UBS) is down 4% on concersn it will have more large write-offs.

Barclays (NYSE:BCS) is down 3% on the belief it may have to raise more money.

ArcelorMittal (NYSE:MT) is off over 3% on news it is buying another steel company.

Randgold Resources (NASDAQ:GOLF) is falling almost 3% as the value of the dollar hurt gold shares.

Stocks may trade differently in the pre-market than they do the regular session.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

After a U.S. Open victory that was perhaps the most thrilling of his entire career, Tiger Woods will miss the rest of the season to undergo surgery to repair a torn ligament in his left knee.

Obviously this is bad news for his main sponsor, Nike (NYSE: NKE). They pay him handsomely to hit their clubs and wear their hat (although his bag bears the logo for Buick), and watching a close-up of his 18th hole birdie was priceless marketing: as the ball rolled, the Nike swoosh was in plain view.

And in a larger sense, this is bad news for anyone who's marketing on the PGA Tour. It's a well-known fact that golf's ratings plummet for any event Tiger isn't playing in. I mean, who really cares about Justin Leonard and Geoff Ogilvy? There's Tiger and then there's everyone else. Wake me when it's over -- maybe I'll go watch some arena football.

Tiger Woods has been a staple on money lists for over a decade now, so I doubt anyone is unaware of the magnitude of his income. This past year, though, has been a great one even by his standards.

He had an outstanding year on the golf course, with seven tour victories, including a PGA championship and the overall Tour Championship. Along the way, he led the tour with winnings of over $10 million.

This was only the beginning of his cash flow, though. Endorsement money well exceeded his on-course winnings. In addition to his standing affiliations with Nike (NYSE: NKE), General Motors (NYSE: GM) and others, Procter & Gamble's (NYSE: PG) Gillette signed him to a new deal for $10-20 million as part of its "Gillette Champions" campaign. In the fall, PepsiCo's (NYSE: PEP) Gatorade agreed to pay him up to $100 million to license a Tiger Woods brand of sports drink, due out next spring. He also moved forward on his newest venture, golf course design, announcing plans for his first U.S. design, The Cliffs at High Carolina.

Tiger continues to dominate his sport and keep his image positive. Young, vastly talented, and a shrewd businessman, in 2007 he not only drove the green, he raked it in, too.

Be sure to check out more Money Winners of 2007.

The New York Times DealBook has a pithy, if not entirely fair piece on Bear Stearns (NYSE: BSC) CEO James Cayne's golfing habits, and their correlation with Bear's subprime troubles. Apparently the writers over there have too much time on their hands because they look up Cayne's golf scores for the past couple months and then plotted them on a graph to find a 35% correlation between his golf game and the company's stock: "That's a fairly weak, but "positive" correlation - which means that as Bear's stock has gone down, his golf game has generally gotten better."

While this is inane and I don't think anyone would argue it has any real value, I would say its significance lies in its inanity. As DealBook writes, "With traders searching for clues to the subprime crisis nearly everywhere, the golf course seems as good a place as any."

As we hears tons of explanations for the market's gyrations, keep that in mind: "Is X any more reasonable of an explanation than James Cayne's golf scores?" Many of the statistics trumpeted by pundits on CNBC probably aren't.

And studying Cayne's golf scores is a lot more interesting.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Cantor believes HouseValues (NASDAQ: SOLD) may be a lagging indicator of the broader real estate market. As such, it may see its customer and revenue bases contract further in the face of still-sluggish housing data and started shares with a Hold rating.

• Pali Research initiated Fortune Brands (NYSE: FO) with a Neutral rating based on valuation.

• The firm also believes D.R. Horton's (NYSE: DHI) risk to book value and profitability is higher than some of the competition since the company has taken significantly less land charges. Shares were initiated with a Hold rating.

• Dick's Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS) was initiated with an Outperform at Baird and is positive on Dick's store expansion, market leadership, margin opportunities and fundamentals.

• USG (NYSE: USG) was initiated with a Sell rating at Banc of America, believing wallboard price and profit declines will be worse than expected due to lower housing starts and less spending on remodeling. Their analysis suggests another leg down for housing...

• Morgan Joseph started Jamba, Inc (NASDAQ: JMBA) with a Buy rating.

• Wachovia started Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) with a Market Perform rating.

• Baird started Golfsmith International Holdings (NASDAQ: GOLF) with a Neutral rating.

• Merrill Lynch initiated Bayer AG (NYSE: BAY) with a Buy rating and UBS initiated QLogic (NASDAQ: QLGC) with a Neutral rating.

If mere athletic talent sold product, kids would be lining up for Tim Duncan's shoes, since he is the best player in the NBA. But it doesn't. It takes a combination of extraordinary athletic accomplishment and charisma to push a brand over the top. Three such athletes, Amanda Beard, LeBron James and Tiger Woods, are front and center in this week's news.

Two are at the peak of their pulling power. LeBron James (Nike, NYSE: NKE, Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO) Powerade) fresh from an astonishing game five of the NBA Eastern conference playoffs, is dominating the sports page, if not the San Antonio Spurs. The Cleveland franchise has gained $185 million in value since his signing, and the $90 million he received from Nike seems like a bargain now. When his contract expires in 2008, he could demand -- $250 million? $500 million? It is possible, by the end of the career, he could be the first $1 billion athlete?

If Tiger doesn't beat him to it. Beginning tomorrow, Tiger Woods (Nike, Buick, General Motors, NYSE:GM) starts his pursuit of the 2007 U.S. Open. He's inked a 5-year, $40 million deal with Nike, and $25 million from Buick. Unlike LeBron, Tiger can look forward to another 30 years of playing, with lots of green jackets and green cash to come.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, whose firms holds about 15% of Ceridian Corporation (NYSE: CEN), doesn't like the proposed $5.3B sale of the company to Thomas H. Lee Partners and Fidelity National Financial Inc (NYSE: FNF), and says he's going to find higher bidders, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The Financial Times reported that British bank Barclays PLC (NYSE: BCS) has drawn up plans to sweeten its $86B all-share offer for Dutch bank ABN Amro Holdings (NYSE: ABN), by substituting cash for some of the shares it is currently offering for ABN.
• Beginning today, Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) is embedding its iTunes internet music download service in the British and Irish social networking site Bebo, reported the Financial Times.

• The New York Post has learned that a private-equity firm owned by the Dubai government is close to buying Barneys New York from the Jones Apparel Group (NYSE: JNY).
• The New York Times reported that the Wall Street Journal is set to "shake up its newsroom" by reassigning and replacing several top editors.
• Golf equipment maker Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: ELY) is suing Fortune Brands Inc.'s (NYSE: FO) Acushnet Co, for allegedly violating five Callaway patents for golf clubs, reported the Los Angeles Times.

I would argue that Adams Golf (OTC BB: ADGO) is among the most flagrantly undervalued stocks on the market today. As a company on the cutting edge of golf technology, Adams has had tremendous success with its recent hybrid irons. Since 2002, sales have increased from $38 million all the way up to 2006's total of $76 million. For the first quarter of 2007, Adams Golf saw its sales surge 25% year over year and, in the second quarter, launched its new Idea A3 hybrid iron set, the next-generation in the hugely successful Idea line of products. The company is growing rapidly, and the brand appears to be gaining traction; it's the number-one hybrid on the three major tours combined. Adams has been profitable every year since 2003 and, excluding the recording of a deferred tax asset, it trades at around 15 times 2006's earnings.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Credit Suisse initiated shares of Allied Waste Industries Inc (NYSE: AW), Republic Services Inc (NYSE: RSG) and Waste Management Inc (NYSE: WMI) with Outperform ratings and a $16 target, $35 target and $45 target, respectively.
• Bernstein initiated the machinery and capital goods sector, initiating shares of Caterpillar Inc (NYSE: CAT) and Illinois Tool Works Inc (NYSE: ITW) with Outperform ratings and a $100 target and $68 target, respectively and Deere & Company (NYSE: DE), Eaton Corporation (NYSE: ETN), Ingersoll-Rand Company Ltd (NYSE: IR) and Parker-Hannifin Corporation (NYSE: PH) with Market Perform ratings.
• Sandler initiated shares of Preferred Bank Los Angeles CA (NASDAQ: PFBC) and UCBH Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ: UCBH) with Buy ratings and shares of Cathay General Bancorp (NASDAQ: CATY) and East West Bancorp, Inc (NASDAQ: EWBC) with Hold ratings.

• Golfsmith International Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: GOLF) was initiated at Wedbush with a Buy rating and $8.75 target, as the firm believes the company is an attractive growth story and buyout candidate.
• Pharmasset Inc (NASDAQ: VRUS) was initiated with a Buy rating and $12 target at Banc of America, as the firm believes Clevudine has the potential to be best in class for the treatment of the hepatitis B virus.
• Ciena Corporation (NASDAQ: CIEN) was initiated with an Outperform rating and $40 target at Piper Jaffray.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• RBC Capital Markets initiated three Chinese Internet companies this morning: Baidu.com Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) with a Sector Perform and a $124 price target, SINA Corporation (NASDAQ: SINA) with a Sector Perform and a $39 price target, and Sohu.com Inc (NASDAQ: SOHU) with an Outperform and a $33 price target. RBC believes Sohu.com is well positioned to benefit from secular growth in online advertising and is the most direct beneficiary of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as it hosts the official site.

• Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C) was initiated by JP Morgan with an Overweight. The firm sees performance in international, corporate and investment banking improving.
• Callaway Golf Company (NYSE: ELY) was initiated by Morgan Joseph with a Buy and $19 price target.

It's no fluke that Goldman Sachs is the top Wall Street firm – in terms of profits. It's pretty simple: the firm has an uncanny ability to anticipate the future.

Yet another example of this is the firm's investment in golf courses in Japan. This started in July 2003, when the Japanese stock market was still in the doldrums.

Goldman's investment, called Accordia, now operates 91 golf courses. In fact, it is the second largest holder of golf courses in the nation.

Now, Goldman plans to take Accordia public. The offering should happen in November.

Actually, within the past year, there was another Japanese golf company that went public: Pacific Golf International Holdings, which has done fairly well.

So, no doubt, Goldman should make another tidy profit from the Accordia IPO.

Interestingly enough, this week we also learned about another savvy move from Goldman. In one of my previous posts for BloggingStocks.com, I already mentioned how the firm most likely made profits from the blow-up of the meltdown of the hedge fund, Amaranth Advisors LLC.

Yes, Goldman's golden touch seems to be still alive and well.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.