Before the Open (Oct 15)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Australia, South Korea and Taiwan did well; there were no big losers. Europe is currently up across-the-board. Belgium and Greece are up more than 2%; Amsterdam and Switzerland are up more than 1%; Germany, Norway and London are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a flat-to-down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
Yesterday’s action was a hint the market has a lot of underlying strength. It gapped down because Washington had not a agreed on a budget over the weekend, but then it shook off the opening weakness and steadily climbed all day and posted moderate gains. Volume dropped – in fact it dropped for the third straight day – but the price action looked great. The market wants to move up. It wants last week’s low to be the low, and it wants to make a new high. It just needs Congress and the White House to agree on something and the shutdown to end.
Here are the daily index charts. The small and mid caps are at new highs. The Nas isn’t far behind. The S&P and Dow are lagging but doing well. Money has been rotating from the large cap, dividend-paying stocks into smaller, more speculative companies – a clear sign of market health.

Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Transocean (RIG +0.51%) was downgraded to “Hold” from “Buy” at Argus.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ +0.72%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 51 cents, weaker than consensus of 52 cents.
Tesla (TSLA +0.57%) was upgraded to “Outperform” from “Neutral” at Wedbush.
Texas Instruments (TXN +0.42%) was upgraded to “Neutral” from “Negative” at Susquehanna.
Microsoft (MSFT +0.94%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Hold” at Jefferies who also raised their price target on the stock to $42 from $33.
Omnicon Group (OMC +0.39%) reported Q3 EPS of 82 cents, better than consensus of 81 cents.
Coca-Cola (KO +0.37%) reported Q3 EPS of 53 cents, right on expectations.
Macy’s (M -0.14%) said it will open most stores nationwide at 8pm on Thanksgiving evening.
Packaging Corp. (PKG +1.60%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 91 cents, better than consensus of 89 cents.
Brown & Brown (BRO +1.21%) reported Q3 EPS of 39 cents, below consensus of 40 cents.
Teradata (TDC -0.70%) fell 13% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q3 EPS of 69 cents-70 cents, well below consensus of 81 cents, and cut its fiscal 2013 EPS view to $2.70-$2.80, below consensus of $3.05.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales
8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
Notable earnings before today’s open: C, DPZ, FRC, JBHT, JNJ, KO, OMC
Notable earnings after today’s close: CSX, IBKR, INTC, LLTC, YHOO
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers