Before the Open (Oct 19)

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Options Expiration Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed and with a bearish bias. Taiwan, South Korea, India and Indonesia dropped the most. Europe is currently mostly down. Austria is down 1.6%; France, Stockholm and the Czech Republic are also down noticeably. Futures here in the States point towards a negative open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil is up, copper down. Gold and silver are down.
The biggest story right now is the beating many stocks have taken after earnings.
Google (GOOG) got clobbered yesterday.

IBM (IBM) got clobbered before that.

Abbott (ABT) too.

It’s not uncommon for stocks to take big hits during earnings season, but it’s usually small caps, not well-established large caps.
Right now Microsoft (MSFT), GE (GE), McDonalds (MCD) and Baker Hughes (BHI) are down a couple % in premarket trading…Chipotle (CMG) and Marvell Tech (MRVL) are down 12%.
Earnings season has just started…there have been a lot more big downside moves than up side moves.
Bank of America has cut Google from to a neutral…it had a buy rating for six years.
Be careful out there. Don’t be a hero. My stance has remained the same for a couple weeks…that the near term is unclear and this is a tough environment. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers