Before the Open (Mar 6)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. India, Taiwan and Japan led the way. Europe is mostly up. Russia is down 2.4% while France, Austria, Stockholm, Italy and Spain are doing well. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.

The dollar is down slightly. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are down.
So far we’ve gotten a moderate down day Monday, a big up day Tuesday and an extremely slow, range bound day Wednesday. Most of the indexes are extremely close to all-time highs. Individual stocks are doing well. The indicators are doing well. There isn’t much to dislike. My biggest concern, as stated the last two days, is the extreme and unsustainable moves from many stocks. Gains in the 50-100% range have been commonplace the last couple months, and they aren’t going to continue the next couple months. Another crop of companies will need to step up and do the heavy lifting.
Tomorrow, 60 min before the open, we’ll get the latest employment figures. Wall St will key in on the numbers, but in reality, unless there’s a massive miss, the Fed isn’t going to change anything. Rates will be kept low, and tapering will continue. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Yum! Brands (YUM +0.23%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at RW Baird.
Lowe’s (LOW -0.55%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Wedbush.
Tiffany (TIF -0.30%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Staples (SPLS -0.52%) reported Q4 EPS of 33 cents, below consensus of 39 cents.
Bob Evans (BOBE -8.18%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Miller Tabak.
Joy Global (JOY +0.90%) reported Q1 EPS of 49 cents, weaker than consensus of 65 cents.
Costco Wholesale (COST -0.15%) fell nearly 3% in European trading after it reported Q2 EPS of $1.05, below consensus of $1.17.
Universal American (UAM -1.20%) reported a Q4 adjusted EPS loss of -5 cents, a bigger loss than consensus of -3 cents.
Barron’s reported that General Electric’s (GE +1.09%) CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, invested his bonus in 104,900 shares of the company’s stock at a price of $2.64 million.
Gabelli reported a 17.66% stake in Griffon (GFF +1.27%) .
LHC Group (LHCG +0.53%) lowered guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS to $1.15-$1.35, below consensus of $1.43.
Spartan Stores (SPTN +0.13%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 40 cents, well above consensus of 25 cents.
Boyd Gaming (BYD +1.22%) reported a Q4 adjusted EPS loss of -24 cents, a smaller loss than consensus of -25 cents.
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
8:30 Productivity and Costs
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Factory Orders
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Notable earnings before today’s open: BKCC, CECE, CIEN, CNQ, COST, CST, FLY, FUR, FXCM, JOY, KR, NAVB, NEON, PF, PLCE, PRFT, RGEN, SFE, SNSS, SPLS, WRES
Notable earnings after today’s close: ALJ, ALSK, AMBA, BODY, BPZ, BREW, CKP, COO, DEPO, EBS, FNSR, HRB, JMBA, KFY, MNTX, NVTL, QIHU, SKUL, SPPI, SURG, TFM, THO, VMEM, VNET, WTI
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers