Before the Open (Aug 21)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. India and Taiwan rallied better than 1%. Europe is currently up across the board. Greece and Prague are the only 1% winners, but it’s still nice to see lots of green. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up.
There isn’t any earth-shattering news out this morning.
The market is slow (tis the season), ranges are small, movement is limited, volume is light.
Don’t over analyze things right now. We’re playing baseball here. Our goal is to swing at good pitches and let the bad ones go by. We’re getting a good pitch here and there (there are some good set ups on the Long List), but those pitches are coming with no one on base, so the damage we can potentially do is limited. That’s just the way it goes. Don’t force the issue. Things will pick up about a week after Labor Day in September.
Rumor is the Germans may be willing to make small concessions on the Greek bailout plan such as a reduction in interest rates and/or extension of the maturity of the bailout loans, but they won’t approve more bailout money.
Spain sold 12-month bills at a yield much lower than the auction in mid July.
Belize missed a $23 million interest payment and is offering creditors 20 cents on the dollar.
Best Buy (BBY) dropped over 10% yesterday, and before today’s open is down another 9% after missing earnings. This is the stock’s lowest level since its late 2008 bottom.
URBN is up almost 15% after beating expectations.
More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers