Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed up across the board. china, India and Japan led the way. Europe is currently mixed, but there are no big winners or losers. Futures here in the States point towards a negative open for the cash market.
The dollar is up. Oil is flat, copper up. Gold and silver are down.
US Jobless Claims rose 46K to 388K. The 4-week MA rose slightly to 342K.
Morgan Stanley (MS) swung to a Q3 loss…stock is up 2%.
Philip Morris (PM) profit dropped…stock is down 2.3%.
Nokia (NOK) is up 3 cents after earnings. Hey don’t laugh, that’s 1%.
Baxter’s (BAX) profits rose on better margins.
Union Pacific’s (UNP) Q3 profit rose 15% relative to the same quarter last year.
Juniper (JNPR) is up 3.6% in premarket trading.
Fairchild Semi’s (FCS) profit and revenue dropped.
Travelers’s (TRV) profit rose…stock is up 2.3%.
LabCorp’s (LH) Q3 earnings rose 10%…they also narrow their full-year earnings range to the middle of range they had already offered.
Southwest (LUV) swung to a profit.
KeyCorp (KEY) is up after earnings…Fifth Bancorp (FITB) is flat.
Polaris’ (PII) profit rose 39%…stock is up 1.5%.
Diamond Offshore’s (DO) net dropped 31%.
Danaher (DHR) Q3 profit rose 4.8%, but the stock is down 3.6%.
Two weeks ago the market rallied 4 of 5 days…last week it dropped 4 of 5 days…now it has moved up 3 straight days. The net of all this is a consolidation pattern within an intermediate term uptrend which began in June. The bulls and bears have taken turns being in control; they’ve also taken turns being scared. It’s all part of the game.
After three straight up day, I’d be on the lookout for a give back. The first move is the easy move. Prices were depressed, so buyers were more aggressive and shorts booked some profits. But now that the S&P is up 35 points in three days, real buying needs to take place to push the market higher. It can happen, and there are some decent set ups out there to play, it’s just that the risk/rewards are not as attractive.
There are lots of headwinds overseas and earnings season is in full gear. Longer term I like the market and believe it’s in good overall shape. But in the near term, things are still unclear. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers