Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets did well yesterday and are mixed today. India, Korea, Singapore and China are down; Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan are up. Europe did well yesterday and is doing well again today. Austria, Norway, Prague and Greece are leading the way; Russia is down 2.2%. 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 down.
Quick recap…the market did great last week. It moved up 4 of 5 days and put in its best week since mid April. The Dow and S&P 500 are once again close to new all-time highs…the Nas is sitting at its highest level since early April…the Russell small caps are lagging overall but they led a couple of days last week.
Indicators have improved but are still not in the bulls’ camp yet. The AD line is still range bound…the SPX bullish percent index has been moving up but is far from it high.
Charts of individual stocks have improved a bunch.
If you’re bullish, if you’re hoping the market rallies, you are encouraged to see many positive signs last week. It’s a start, but let’s remember what the market has done the last two months. Rallies have gotten sold, dips have gotten bought. No move has lasted more than a couple days. I like last week’s action, but we can’t assume it’s going to continue. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
AutoZone (AZO -0.14%) reported Q3 EPS of $8.46, better than consensus of $8.45.
Hillshire Brands (HSH +2.18%) surged 22% in pre-market trading after Pilgrims’s Pride offered to buy the company for $6.4 billion.
Cisco Systems (CSCO +0.57%) rose 1.5% in pre-market trading after Seutsche Bank AG upgraded the company to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold.’
Pfizer (PFE -0.57%) rose nearly 1% in pre-market trading after abandoned its attempt to acquire AstraZeneca Plc.
Staples (SPLS -0.43%) fell nearly 2% in pre-market trading after Goldman Saches downgraded the company to a ‘Sell,’
Wolverine Assets reported a 9.99% passive stake in Genius Brands (GNUS +4.39%) .
Adage Capital Partners reported a 5.06% passive stake in Burlington Stores (BURL +1.49%) .
Gabelli reported a 7.45% stake in Zale (ZLC -0.37%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Durable Goods
9:00 FHFA House Price Index
9:00 S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index
9:45 PMI Services Index Flash
10:00 Consumer Confidence
10:00 State Street Investor Confidence Index
10:00 Richmond Fed Mfg.
10:30 Dallas Fed Manufacturing Outlook
1:00 PM Results of $31B, 2-Year Note Auction
Notable earnings before today’s open: AZO, BNS, FRO, JKS
Notable earnings after today’s close: QIHU, WDAY, WTSL
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (May 27)”
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They took out Thurs’ high, and the shorts went berserk as predicted. And that continued yesterday (futures traded until 1 pm Est), and then during last night’s session, hitting what equates to 1908 SPX approx early this morning.
Thus we’ll gap higher at the open today. The futures have dropped off only 1.5 pts from that high here at 8:55.
My guess is that they’ll bring it down to 1900 SPX sometime today. If they do get there, they need to hold to about 1898; if so, the target is 1910.
There are other levels of support above 1900, and the way the market has traded over the last two weeks, it would not be a surprise to see a bid taking it higher after a smaller-than-normal retracement. Shorts are driving this higher, and many are finding that they anticipated “sell in May” prematurely and are getting burned.
If I’m reading Jason right, he’s cautious about getting too bullish here, and I agree. It’s okay to BE bullish, just make sure you have an exit plan or be hedged.
Won’t be able to post tomorrow. See you Thurs