Before the Open (Jul 25)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down across-the-board. India, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore dropped 0.9% or more. Europe is currently down across-the-board. Austria, France, Germany, Amsterdam, Norway, Switzerland, London and Italy are down 0.6% or more. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
Yesterday the market suffered its worst down day since the Jun 24 bottom, but this isn’t say much because the market has practically moved straight up over the last month. Every little dip has gotten bought, and not once had back-to-back down days been registered. So even though yesterday wasn’t a big deal, relative to the last month, it felt different.
Don’t fight a pullback. Have a plan and execute. You’re either playing the bigger moves, in which case your stops are a little looser and based on previous support and resistance levels. You’re playing the big picture, and you don’t want to get stopped out unless a stock’s upside progress is over. Or you’re a shorter term trader who isn’t going to let a solid profit turn into a small profit or a small profit into a loss. You’re a singles hitter. You constantly leave money on the table, but you have a high batting average.
One or the other. Don’t be middle of the road.
Here are stock stories from barchart.com…
Apple (AAPL) rallied sharply by 5% in after-hours trading yesterday after reporting Q2 EPS of $7.47, which was well above the consensus of $7.30.
Earnings reports released thus far this morning have mostly been positive but there were some high profile disappointments such as Boeing and Caterpillar. Notable reports include Reynolds American (RAI -1.99%) (0.84 vs 0.835), WellPoint (WLP +0.59%) (2.60 vs 2.08), Thermo Fisher (TMO -0.90%) (1.32 vs 1.30), Praxair (PX -0.01%) (1.49 vs 1.48), Wyndham (WYN -0.15%) (0.98 vs 0.91), Eli Lilly (LLY +0.71%) (1.16 vs 1.01), Northrop Grumman (NOC +0.36%) (2.05 vs 1.71), Pepsico (PEP -0.23%) (1.31 vs 1.19), Moody’s (MCO +0.68%) (1.00 vs 0.91), Ford (F -0.59%) (0.45 vs 0.37), Motorola Solutions (MSI +0.18%) (1.12 vs 1.04), Seagate (STX -3.23%) (1.20 vs 1.19). Negative reports this morning include Dr Pepper Snapple (DPS -0.29%) (0.84 vs 0.842), Allegheny (ATI +1.94%) (0.04 vs 0.12), AmerisourceBergen (ABC -2.31%) (0.73 vs 0.74), T Rowe Price (TROW -0.52%) (0.92 vs 0.95), Boeing (BA +0.87%) (1.41 vs 1.58), Caterpillar (CAT -0.56%) (1.45 vs 1.68).
Virtually all of the earnings reports released after yesterday’s close were above consensus. Notable reports included Robert Half (RHI -0.14%) (0.46 vs consensus of 0.43), Electronic Arts (EA -0.75%) (-0.40 vs -0.60), Juniper Networks (JNPR +2.84%) (0.29 vs 0.25), Discover Financial (DFS -0.33%) (1.20 vs 1.15), International Game Technology (IGT -3.12%) (0.33 vs 0.31), and Linear Technology (LLTC +0.57%) (0.43 vs 0.42). Companies that reported worse than expected results included AT&T (T +0.65%) (0.67 vs 0.68), and Norfolk Southern (NSC -0.66%) (1.46 vs 1.49).
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
today’s upgrades/downgrades