Before the Open (Sep 5)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down across the board. Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Greece is up 2.4%; otherwise there are no 1% movers. Futures here in the States point towards a gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is down slightly. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down.
Demand for German debt was weak…most likely because the ECB is expected to get into the bond buying business…which means Germany will be exposed to more debt from troubled countries.
Nokia is unveiling a new line of smart phones that uses Microsoft’s Windows 8 platform. Is there room for a third operating system?
FedEx (FDX) lowered earnings expectations for the quarter that ended in August. The stock is down 3% before the open.
AAPL is holidng a big event on Sept 12 – most likely the launch of the iPhone 5.
Facebook is doing a $2B stock buyback at half the IPO price – not a bad trade. But don’t expect more than a psychological boost. Most of the shares they buy back will most likley be employees whose lock-ups are ending and are eager to sell. I’ve talked before about how I felt their IPO was perfect. Zuckerberg has committed to not selling any more shares for a year. The stock is up almost 3% today after hitting a new all-time low yesterday.
FNSR missed on earnings but said they expect revenue growth to resume in the current quarter.
DG is up almost 3% before the open – earnigs related.
In my opinion the market is still in the “post holiday hangover” period. Just because Labor Day is past, the kids are back in school and a new month has begun doesn’t mean the market’s personality immediately changes…especially considering there’s important news to be released by the ECB and Friday’s extremely important employment report (which has huge political implications) looms.
Here’s how I see the indexes. The Nas and S&P are consolidating within uptrends. The Russell broke out yesterday; it’d be nice to get some follow through today. The Dow has acted odd lately but remains in an uptrend overall.

headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers