Before the Open (Apr 10)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Indonesia dropped 3.2%; New Zealand, Hong Kong and China did well. Europe is currently mixed. London and Russia are up; Italy and Spain are down, but in all cases, there are no big movers. Futures here in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.

The dollar is flat. Oil is down, copper up. Gold and silver are up.
The market bounced nicely yesterday on average volume that was weaker than the previous couple days. The first move off a bottom is the easy move. Bottom fishers, speculators and shorts all buy, but these traders are mostly short term. After a few days, real buying – from big funds, pensions, etc – need to step in and buy. These entities don’t buy unless they see the market doing well for many months because they aren’t/can’t be nearly as agile. The first move is the easy move, then it gets harder. Harder is right now.
We’ve been down this road many times. The market moves down…the bulls get very worried that the multi-year bull run is finally coming to an and and the bears get excited again…then the market bounces, and instead of an innocent bounce within a downtrend, the market keeps going and going and going, and before you know it, full-blown rally mode is back.
There are some hurdles to climb and developments that I’ve discussed recently that need to be reversed, but at the very least we need to consider both cases. It’s not wise to be too opinionated here. The unexpected happens often because very few expect it. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Molson Coors (TAP +0.19%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Nomura.
Rite Aid (RAD +4.75%) reported Q4 EPS ex-items of 10 cents, more than double consensus of 4 cents.
Facebook (FB +7.25%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Pivotal Research.
Twitter (TWTR +1.70%) was upgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Sell’ at Cantor.
Pier 1 Imports (PIR -0.27%) reported Q4 EPS of 41 cents, right on consensus, although Q4 revenue of $515.8 million was slghtly better than consensus of $512.76 million.
Akamai (AKAM +1.34%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at B. Riley.
Family Dollar Stores (FDO +0.56%) reported Q2 EPS of 80 cents, well below consensus of 90 cents, and then lowered guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS ex-items to $3.05-$3.25, below consensus of $3.38.
Chevron (CVX +1.10%) warned in its interim update that earnings for Q1 2014 are expected to be lower than Q4, principally as a result of adverse foreign exchange effects and selected asset impairments and related charges.
Huber Capital reported a 10.14% passive stake in Uranium Energy (UEC +16.50%) .
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY +0.22%) fell 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 EPS of $1.60, right on consensus, but reported Q4 revenue of $3.2 billion, less than consensus of $3.22 billion.
PriceSmart (PSMT +0.99%) reported Q2 EPS of 93 cents, better than consensus of 88 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
Chain Store Sales
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 Import/Export Prices
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
11:50 Fed’s Evans: “Central Banking After the Great Recession”
1:00 PM Results of $13B, 30-Year Note Auction
2:00 PM Treasury Budget
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Notable earnings before today’s open: CBSH, FDO, IGTE, PIR, RAD, SJR, TITN
Notable earnings after today’s close: NQ
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers