Before the Open (Jun 22)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan and Australia did well. Europe currently leans to the downside. Greece, Finland, Norway, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Austria are weak. Futures in the States point towards a slight down open for the cash market.
The dollar is down slightly. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down.
Solid day yesterday for the Nas and Nas 100 – the other indexes didn’t come along for the ride. They weren’t overly weak; they just didn’t show much interest in moving up with energy.
Here’s the Nas 100. Twice it bounced off its 50 and now it sits near a resistance level. This chart is rock solid. You can’t be anything but long. Simple as that.

The Russell 2000 was weak yesterday, but I’d consider it extremely bullish if it can hold above its 200-day. When an issue trades above and below a key moving average and then moves up and holds the MA, an uptrend typically follows.

Stock headlines from barchart.com…
CarMax (KMX +0.81%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Positive’ at Susquehanna.
Texas Roadhouse (TXRH -1.42%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital Markets with a price target of $58.
Cinemark Holdings (CNK -0.70%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
Splunk (SPLK +0.37%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Guggenheim with a price target of $70.
Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF -1.31%) was upgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Sell’ at Wunderlich Securities.
Southwest Airlines (LUV +1.16%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Argus with a price target of $68.
Oracle (ORCL +1.07%) rallied nearly 10% in pre-market trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 89 cents, higher than consensus of 78 cents
FB Financial (FBK -0.47%) filed to sell 4.81 million shares for holders.
Steelcase (SCS -1.21%) plunged 18% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 revenue of $735.1 million, weaker than consensus of $744.5 million, and then said it sees Q2 revenue of $750 million-$780 million, below consensus of $799.5 million.
Hain Celestial Group (HAIN +0.39%) climbed over 3% in after-hours trading ahead of the release of its Q1 EPS results before trading on Thursday.
Taylor Morrison Home (TMHC -1.27%) fell over 2% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced an underwritten public offering of 10.0 million shares of its Class A common stock.
Jernigan Capital (JCAP -0.98%) dropped 8% in after-hours trading after announced that it had commenced an underwritten public offering of 3.0 million shares of its common stock.
New Residential Investment (NRZ -0.50%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it raised its quarterly dividend to 50 cents a share from 48 cents, the second time this year it has raised its dividend.
Wednesday’s Key Earnings
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) +10% AH bolstering cloud-based services.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:00 FHFA House Price Index
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Leading Indicators
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
11:00 Kansas City Fed Mfg Survey
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY