Before the Open (Oct 12)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Hong Kong and Indonesia moved up the most; India moved down the most. Europe is currently mixed. Greece is up 3%; there are no other big winners or losers. Futures here in the States point towards a gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil is up, copper down. Gold is flat, silver down.
I’ve said several times this week the market is not a very interesting place to be. The intermediate term trends remain in place, but things are not clear in the near term. As of now, the market is set to close its biggest down week since the rally off the summer lows began. One big down week doesn’t change the big picture, but it does change how we trade. I’ve been mostly laying low.
Building your account is a two step process. 1) You gotta seize opportunities when they’re given – make money when making money is easy. 2) Don’t give profits back when the personality of the market shifts and trading becomes much more difficult. There are no bonus points to navigating a difficult market. Most traders would be better off heading to the sidelines when the market changes. It’s the baseball equivalent of “swing at good pitches, don’t swing at bad pitches.”
There are a few earnings reports out today, but the season doesn’t pick up until next week.
JP Morgan posted record profits in the most recent quarter – not a surprise, the stock has done very well.
WFC is also out with earnings – stock is down 2.7%
IGTE is up 3.8% after earnings.
AMD is down almost 9% – warned that “weaker-than-expected demand across all product lines” would yield a revenue shortfall for the third quarter.
STM is up almost 13%.
Weyerhaeuser (WY) is upping their dividend by 13%.
Ecolab (ECL) is buying privately held Champion Technologies.
Beazer Homes (BZH) is doing a 1-for-5 reverse stock split today.
JB Hunt (JBHT) did well with earnings…stock is up 5.4% in premarket trading.
More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers

0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Oct 12)”

  1. Its Friday in the most volatile month of the year. DougShort.com says that on average the next two months are up about 2%. But this year we have the cliff casting shadows. Only a blind and deaf person say it is not there. Safer in Corp bonds. As usual Jason gives excellent advice – fly your kite only when the wind is with you. Keep it up.

Leave a Reply