Afternoon Spy: Smart Traders Seeking Safe Havens (YONG, CGA, JVA, NXTM, MLPG, MLPL, TLT, TLH, SLV, SINA, JVA, AAPL, WFR)

The recent slide for stocks resumed on Friday, with carnage across the board. Investors appear to have given up on this week, and are looking forward to the weekend. Meanwhile, aside from a very few isolated bright spots, safe-haven instruments are holding up the best in an ugly market.

Today’s Top tickerspy Indexes:

Chinese Agriculture Stocks (up 2.1%, see graph): Yongye International (YONG) is posting a double-digit gain after announcing a $50 million private equity deal with Morgan Stanley. China Green Agriculture (CGA) is the only other name in the segment making a notable move.

Coffee Stocks (up 1.0%, see graph): Micro-cap Coffee Holding Company (JVA) is surging yet again on the heels of an earnings-fueled pop on Thursday.

Dialysis and Kidney Disease Stocks (up 0.2%, see graph): NxStage Medical (NXTM) is performing well after JP Morgan upgraded the stock to “outperform” based on valuation.

MLP-Focused Closed-End Funds and ETFs (up 0.1%, see graph): With the market struggling, investors are turning to safe-havens like high-yielding instruments UBS E-TRACS (MLPG) and UBS E-TRACS 2xMonthly Leveraged Long Alerian MLP Infrastructure ETN (MLPL). The Bond ETFs Index is also holding steady, as investors turn to safe-haven Treasuries ETFs like iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond Fund (TLT) and iShares Barclays 10-20 Year Treasury Bd (TLH).

Today’s Top Market Headlines

Metals Plunging Across The Board, Silver Down Sharply: The metals market is much lower today, as all metals are down sharply. iShares Silver Trust (SLV) is leading the way.

Sina Pullback a Buying Opportunity, Piper Jaffray Says: Despite the recent near 30% pullback in shares of SINA (SINA), Piper Jaffray says the pullback is a buying opportunity.

Coffee Holding Rising Again: Coffee Holding Company (JVA) shares had an incredible day yesterday, gaining more than 45% on a strong earnings report combined with strong technical analysis.

Apple: That Mysterious First Global Downgrade: Folks, yesterday morning came a rare downgrade on Apple (AAPL), from First Global, a Mumbai-based brokerage that I don’t cite as much, mostly because I’ve had little contact with the shop.

MEMC: Stifel Downgrades On Weak Outlook For Solar Wafers: Stifel Nicolaus analyst Jeff Osborne this morning cut his rating on shares of MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR) to Hold from Buy on concerns about the “rapidly deteriorating environment in the solar wafer industry.”

Fed May Review Capital for More Banks: The Federal Reserve may expand its annual review of bank capital beyond the 19 largest financial institutions to push rigorous risk-management standards into more banks, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Tags: AAPL, CGA, JVA, MLPG, MLPL, NXTM, SINA, SLV, TLH, TLT, WFR, YONG