Before the Open (Sep 6)

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Employment Numbers Day.
The Asian/Pacific market closed mixed and with an upward slant. China, India and Indonesia did well; Japan dropped 1.5%. Europe is currently mixed, and there are very few noticeable movers. Austria and the Czech Republic are down; Greece is up. Futures here in the States (prior to the employment numbers being released) are up a couple points.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up.
So far we’ve gotten 3 of 4 up days this week, and the S&P is up 22 points. Wednesday was the big up day; yesterday was a hold day. It’s a start, but overall it’s no different than any other move up within a short term downtrend.
Many bottoms are quietly put in place without much fanfare or news coverage. Then the indexes go up and up and up, and before you know it, a rally is underway and you’re never given a second chance to enter. Trading has little to do with knowing what’s going to happen. Instead you trade in the direction of the trend when the odds are favorable all while maintaining a sense of humor and some mental flexibility because you will occasionally be on the wrong side from time to time. If you find yourself trying to figure out what will happen next, stop. It’s too stressful. The only thing you can control is the risk you take. Keep that in check, and you’ll be fine over time.
Here are the employment numbers…
unemployment rate: 7.3% (was 7.4% last month)
nonfarm payrolls: +169K
private payrolls: +152K
average workweek: up 0.1 hours to 34.5
hourly wages: up 5 cents to $24.05
July slashed from 162K to 104K
June cut from 188K to 172K
On the news, the S&P futures jumped a couple points and are now up >8 heading into the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Bloomberg reports that memory chip prices have jumped +19% after SK Hynix, the firm that makes almost one-third of the world’s DRAM chips, suspended operations in China after a factory fire two days ago.
eBay (EBAY +0.97%) was upgraded to “Outperform” from “Neutral” at RW Baird.
Constellation Brands (STZ +0.91%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at BofA/Merrill.
Five Below (FIVE +2.84%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at UBS who also raised their price target on the stock tp $45 from $39.
Stryker (SYK +0.77%) was upgraded to “Outperform” from “Neutral” at Credit Suisse.
Smith & Wesson (SWHC +3.52%) fell over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 EPS of 40 cents, stronger than consensus of 36 cents, but then gave guidance on Q2 EPS of 20 to 22 cents, below consensus of 29 cents.
M&T Bank (MTB +0.34%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Outperform” at Credit Suisse.
VeriFone (PAY +2.17%) rose over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 24 cents, stronger than consensus of 20 cents.
Cooper Companies (COO -0.08%) reported Q3 EPS of $1.74, better than consensus of $1.72, and raised its guidance on fiscal 2013 EPS to $6.23-$6.28 from $6.15-$6.25, stronger than consensus of $6.22.
Gap (GPS -0.39%) reported that its August net same-store sales were up 2% y/y.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Non-farm payrolls
Notable earnings before today’s open: SFD, MFRM
Notable earnings after today’s close: SHFL
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers