Before the Open (Oct 6)

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Employment Numbers Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, South Korea, India, Australia and Singapore led the way. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently lean to the downside. Poland, Greece, South Africa and Romania are doing well; Turkey, Norway, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Saudi Arabia are down. Futures in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.
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The dollar is flat. Oil is down more than a buck; copper is also down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
Here are the employment numbers:
unemployment rate: 4.2% (was 4.4% last month)
nonfarm payrolls: -75,000
private payrolls:
average workweek: unchanged at 34.4 hours
hourly wages: increased 12 cents to $26.55/hour
labor participation rate:
vAugust job gain raised from 156K to 169K.
July gain was cut from 189K to 138K.
On the news S&P futures dropped a couple points.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Goldman Sachs (GS +2.39%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Market Outperform’ at Vining Sparks.
Bank of America (BAC +1.63%) was downgraded to ‘Market Outperform’ from ‘Strong Buy’ at Vining Sparks.
Albemarle (ALB +1.04%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Kraft Heinz (KHC +0.62%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Piper Jaffray with a price target of $90.
Microchip (MCHP -0.33%) was initiated as a new ‘Buy’ at Argus with a price target of $106.
Marathon Petroleum (MPC -0.11%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Edward Jones with a price target of $63.
Green Dot (GDOT +2.71%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ rating at Craig-Hallum with a price target of $70.
Valero Energy (VLO -0.54%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at JPMorgan Chase.
HollyFrontier (HFC -2.56%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Yum China Holdings (YUMC +0.20%) climbed almost 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 revenue of $2.04 billion, higher than consensus of $1.98 billion.
Costco Wholesale (COST +1.13%) fell over 1% in after-hours trading even after it reported Q4 revenue of $43.3 billion, better than consensus of $41.62 billion.
Annaly Capital Management (NLY +0.41%) slid nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it announced that it intends to make a public offering of 65 million shares of its common stock.
Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR -0.09%) surged nearly 20% in after-hours trading after it entered into an exclusivity pact with Siris Capital Group.
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Thursday’s Key Earnings
Thursday’s Key Earnings
Costco (NASDAQ:COST) -2.5% AH on Q4 earnings.
Yum China (NYSE:YUMC) +3.1% AH on Q3 revenue growth, declaring first dividend.
Helen of Troy Limited (NASDAQ:HELE) -2.4% AH despite Q2 earnings beat.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Non-farm payrolls
9:15 Fed’s Bostic Speech
10:00 Wholesale Trade
12:15 PM Fed’s Dudley: Monetary Policy
12:45 PM Fed’s Kaplan speech
1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count
1:50 PM Fed’s Bullard: “Standard of Living Across U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas”
3:00 PM Consumer Credit
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY