Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the downside. Japan, Hong Kong, China and Singapore were weak; Australia, India and New Zealand did well. Europe is currently mixed, but movement is minimal. Russia, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Hungary and the UK are down; Norway, Denmark, Portugal and the Czech Republic are up. Futures in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are flat. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up.
Two more days of trading this month. Thanks to the recent bounce, the S&P is down only 2.5 points, so it wouldn’t take much to get the index into positive territory for the fifth straight month. The November – March time period has been super bullish.
The indexes are unchanged going back 1-3 months. The internals still lean to the downside. Oil has perked up lately. Maybe it’ll be the next group to play. Other than big cap tech, there hasn’t been much…which is to be expected when the market doesn’t do anything.
I like the market overall, but in the near term there’s proving to do. The bulls are trying to take control, but they haven’t accomplished the mission yet.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Lululemon Athletica (LULU +4.11%) plunged 17% in after-hours trading after it said it sees a Q1 total comparable sales decrease “in the low-single digits,” weaker than consensus of a +2.7% increase, and said it sees Q1 EPS of 25 cents-27 cents, below consensus of 39 cents.
Sunoco LP (SUN +0.83%) was rated a new ‘Sell’ at Goldman Sachs with a price target of $21.
Range Resources (RRC +4.17%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS with a price target of $38.
INC Research Holdings (INCR +0.69%) gained over 2% in after-hours trading when it was announced that it will replace CEB Inc. in the S&P MidCap 400 Index before the open of trading on Wednesday, April 5.
Progress Software (PRGS +1.31%) climbed 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 34 cents, better than consensus of 26 cents.
ConocoPhillips (COP +1.26%) rose 6% and Cenovus Energy (CVE +0.85%) declined 7% in after-hours trading after Cenovus Energy purchased some ConocoPhillips oil sands assets and conventional natural gas assets in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada for $17.7 billion.
Worthington Industries (WOR +0.82%) dropped 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 net sales of $703.4 million, below consensus of $717.3 million.
Cara Therapeutics (CARA +6.08%) fell over 5% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced an underwritten public offering of $80 million of shares of its common stock.
Esperion Therapeutics (ESPR -2.44%) gained 2% in after-hours trading after it was rated a new ‘Buy’ at UBS with a price target of $52.
OFS Capital (OFS -1.58%) slid nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced an underwritten offering of 3.5 million shares of common stock.
Extreme Networks (EXTR -1.07%) surged 15% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had purchased Brocade’s data center from Broadcom for $55 million in cash.
Sigma Designs (SIGM unch) dropped over 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $42.7 million, weaker than consensus of $43.3 million, and said it is “prudent to take immediate actions to lower our expense structure.”
Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp. (TNXP +34.54%) tumbled 16% in after-hours trading after it announce a proposed public offering of common stock, although no size was given.
Wednesday’s Key Earnings
Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU) -18.7% AH on a “slow start” to 2017.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 GDP Q4
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 Corporate Profits
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
9:45 Fed’s Mester Speech
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
11:00 Fed’s Kaplan Speech
3:00 Farm Prices
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
4:30 PM Fed’s Dudley: “The Importance of Financial Conditions in the Conduct of Monetary Policy”
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY