Before the Open (Jan 9)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Japan dropped 1.5%; China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan also lost ground. Europe is currently mostly up. Austria, Italy, Spain and Stockholm are leading the way. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper up. Gold and silver are up.
The first five days of the year are in the books, so we can finally stop talking about that indicator. It’s not helpful anyways because even if the odds favored 2014 being an up year, it doesn’t tell us what the path will be. The market could slowly drop 10% and then rally the last two months of the year and satisfy the indicator, but most of the movement could have been to the downside.
Here’s the 15-min S&P chart. The index has traded in a 15-point range the first week of the year and an 8-point range the last two days. So much for things dying down at the end of 2013 and then volatility picking up in 2014. It’s been mostly a slow year for the overall market.

Overall I like the market, but there are some cross-currents to deal with. This is not a “go all in” time. Play it safe here. My sense is the market has yet to establish a personality here in the new year.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Aetna (AET +1.02%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
Cantor Fitzgerald named Thermo Fisher Scientific (TMO +1.54%) its top stock pick for 2014 and raised its price target for the stock to $128 from $112.
Valspar (VAL +0.34%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at RW Baird.
Yum! Brands (YUM -0.04%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
McDonald’s (MCD -1.01%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.
NVIDIA (NVDA +1.36%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Canaccord due to valuation.
Pier 1 Imports (PIR +0.82%) lowered guidance on fiscal year 2014 EPS to $1.07-$1.12 from $1.21-$1.27, well below consensus of $1.23.
Sprint (S +1.11%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank due to valuation.
Jefferies upgraded Public Storage (PSA +0.18%) to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ citing the recent pullback in shares and strong fundamentals.
Macy’s (M -0.65%) rallied 5% in after-hours trading after reiterating its fiscal-year EPS guidance and announcing cost-savings measures involving cutting 2,500 employees. The company’s fiscal-2014 EPS guidance also beat estimates thanks to the cost-savings measures.
Global Payments (GPN -0.74%) rallied 5% in after-hours trading after a positive earnings report.
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY +0.59%) fell 8% in after-hours trading after missing earnings expectations.
United Airlines (UAL +6.02%) reported that December traffic rose +4.1%.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
Chain Store Sales
7:30 Challenger Job-Cut Report
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Notable earnings before today’s open: AYI, FDO, SVU
Notable earnings after today’s close: AA, ANGO, PSMT, SNX
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers