Before the Open (Jul 11)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed up across-the-board. China rallied 3.2%, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan rallied more than 2% and Autralia, India and Singapore rallied better than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Belgium is up 2.4%; Austria, Germany, Norway and the Czech Republic are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a huge gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is getting hit hard. Oil is down, copper up. Gold and silver are up.
The market has been doing great lately. What started as a potential dead-cat bounce has turned into a full-blown rally that has completely changed many charts. The Russell 2000 small caps are at an all-time high; the S&P 400 mid caps aren’t far behind. Most other indexes have successfully recaptured their post-FOMC losses. Then after yesterday’s close, Bernanke said low inflation and high unemployment means the Fed can continue with it QE stimulus. The S&P futures are up 18, so you know how Wall St. has taken to the news. I guess the market likes a weakish economy accompanied by QE than a strengthen economy and no QE.
Two weeks ago I said I was favoring a summer range. Many traders thought I was nuts. I got lots of emails telling me the party was over, but I stuck with my stance because the trend had been up for so long, the bulls had been in control for so long, I felt the bulls deserved the benefit of the doubt. Here we are two weeks later, and my non-bearish stance may be too tame. We’ll see.
Here are stock-specific headlines from barcharts.com…
Viacom (VIAB +1.55%) was upgraded to “Market Perform” from “Underperform” at Bernstein.
Family Dollar (FDO +7.11%) was downgraded to “Equal Weight” from “Overweight” at Barclays.
The NY Post reported that Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon (VZ -0.82%) and Vodafone (VOD -0.10%) , could end up owing Apple (AAPL -0.38%) as much as $14 billion in purchase commitments if the mobile carrier fails to sell an agreed number of iPhones.
Wynn Resorts (WYNN +0.54%) was downgraded to “Underweight” from “Equal Weight” at Morgan Stanley.
Hess Corp. (HES +0.23%) was upgraded to “Overweight” from “Neutral” at JPMorgan.
New York Times (NYT -1.11%) was downgraded to “Equal Weight” from “Overweight” at Barclays.
Analog Devices (ADI +1.02%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Hold” at Jefferies.
KB Home (KBH -2.81%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Fair Value” at CRT Capital.
Diamond Offshore (DO -0.04%) was upgraded to “Market Perform” from “Underperform” at BMO Capital.
Transocean (RIG -0.35%) was downgraded to “Market Perform” from “Outperform” at BMO Capital.
Worldwide PC shipments dropped to 76 million units in Q2, a 10.9% decrease from the same period last year, according to preliminary results by Gartner. This marks the fifth consecutive quarter of declining shipments, which is the longest duration of decline in the PC market’s history.
Fed Chairman Bernanke who was speaking at an event late Wednesday in Cambridge, MA. said “inflation, jobs indicate accomodative policy needed” and that “a rate increase won’t be automatic when jobless rate hits the Fed’s target.”
Yum! Brands (YUM -0.88%) reported Q2 EPS ex-items of 56 cents, better than consensus of 54 cents, although it said its June same-store-sales for its China division were down approx 10%.
PriceSmart (PSMT -1.80%) fell nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 61 cents, weaker than consensus of 64 cents.
Walgreens (WAG +3.01%) increased its quarterly dividend from 27.5 cents to 31.5 cents per share.
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
today’s upgrades/downgrades