Before the Open (May 23)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets got hit hard. Japan dropped 7.3%; Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan each dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Stockholm, Switzerland and Greece are down more than 2%. Futures here in the States point towards a huge gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up.
It looks like the party is over in the near term, and instead of the music stopping and there being one less chair, there are five less chairs. The market is coming down hard. If the futures don’t change before the open, the S&P will be 50 points off yesterday’s high. Sheesh. You’ve heard that the market takes the stairs up and the elevator down!
I’ve been warning all weak to play it safe and manage positions wisely. Hopefully you took partial profits and had a game plan as to how you’d manage your remaining shares. It’s ok to have a trailing stop and give some profits back when the market turns. That’s inevitable. If you attempt to milk a trend for all it’s worth on the way up, you’ll give some back when it reverses. But now that it has reversed, you have to exit positions that were meant to be trades. You can’t negotiate with the market. You can’t say: “yesterday morning I was up 5 bucks on this, and now I’m only up 3; please please please give me one more little bounce, then I’ll get out.” If you do this, if you play mind games with yourself, your 3 bucks will turn into 2 and then 1, and they you’ll really be pissed.
Here are stock-specific stories from barchart.com…
Starwood Hotels (HOT -0.79%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at BofA/Merrill who raised their price target on the stock to $84 from $70.
Dollar Tree (DLTR -2.05%) reported Q1 EPS of 59 cents, better than consensus of 57 cents.
Hormel Foods (HRL -0.49%) reported Q2 EPS of 48 cents, weaker than consensus of 49 cents.
Children’s Place (PLCE -0.44%) reported Q1 EPS of 83 cents, better than consensus of 61 cents, and raised guidance on fiscal 2013 EPS to $3.05-$3.20 from $2.90-$3.10, stronger than consensus of $3.00.
Reuters reported that the U.S. House of Representatives voted 241-175 in favor of a bill that says a presidential permit was not needed to approve the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Bloomberg reported that a FDA panel voted 13-3 in favor that a Merck (MRK -1.31%) insomnia drug suvorexant is safe in low doses.
Synopsys (SNPS -1.03%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 66 cents, better than consensus of 63 cents.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ +0.57%) surged 13% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 87 cents, much better than consensus of 81 cents, and raised guidance on fiscal 2013 EPS to $3.50-$3.60, stronger than consensus of $3.49.
PetSmart (PETM -1.06%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 EPS of 98 cents, better than consensus of 96 cents, and raised guidance on fiscal 2013 EPS to $3.82-$3.94 from $3.76-$3.92, stronger than consensus of $3.91.
L Brands (LTD -0.92%) reported Q1 EPS of 48 cents, stronger than consensus of 46 cents,
Spartan Stores (SPTN unch) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 48 cents, better than consensus of 37 cents.
Shanda Games (GAME -0.32%) reported Q1 EPS of 16 cents, better than consensus of 15 cents.
More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers