Before the Open (Jun 5)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets lean to the upside. Japan and India posted the biggest gains; Korea was the only noticeable down market. Europe is currently mostly up. Greece, Italy, Norway and France are leading. There are no big down markets. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper is down. Gold is up, silver flat.
The market keeps chugging along. The small caps continue to lag, and the bears are still believers – for various reasons – that a big move down is imminent. But the market hasn’t fallen apart yet. The S&P is at a new high; the Dow and mid caps aren’t far behind; the Nas has improved a bunch. The market was supposed to fall apart, right? Yet here we are…the market is doing just fine. There are still some mixed signals. Weak breadth is concerning. But there’s no question where our bias has been. Many stocks have broken out lately and given us pretty darn good gains. I’m not swinging for the fences, but it hasn’t been too hard to pick off little gains from many set ups.
Volume has been on the lighter side, and volatility is at its lowest level since prior to the financial crisis. So let’s not get lazy. Don’t let a small loss turn into a big loss, and don’t give too much room to stocks that give you solid gains. The market is doing well but not well enough to let trades run on auto pilot. Manage them wisely…you’ll do fine. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
JM Smucker (SJM -0.11%) reported Q4 EPS of $1.21, better than consensus of $1.17.
Verint Systems (VRNT +0.58%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
Clovis (CLVS +0.44%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel.
Citigroup keeps a ‘Buy’ rating on Canadian Pacific (CP +1.64%) and raises its price target on the stock to $205 from $190.
Joy Global (JOY -0.28%) reported Q2 EPS of 76 cents, higher than consensus of 71 cents.
T-Mobile (TMUS +0.23%) rose over 2% and Sprint (S -1.05%) climbed over 4% in after-hours trading after Bloomberg reported that the companies were close to an agreement on the price, capital structure and termination fee for the takeover of T-Mobile.
Greif (GEF -1.00%) reported Q2 EPS of 61 cents, weaker than consensus of 67 cents, and then lowered guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS to $2.48-$2.80 from $2.60-$3.15, well below consensus of $2.99.
Whole Foods (WFM +1.78%) was initiated with an ‘Outperform’ at Imperial Capital with a price target of $48.
Agilent (A +0.40%) adjusted its previously reported Q2 net income downward to $139 million, or 41 cents per share, a change from the second-quarter net income of $150 million, or 45 cents per share, previously announced May 14.
PVH Corporation (PVH +0.27%) dropped over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 EPS of $1.47, below consensus of $1.49, and then lowered guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS to $7.30 -$7.40 from $7.40 – $7.50, weaker than consensus of $7.51.
Verint Systems (VRNT +0.58%) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 72 cents, well above consensus of 55 cents, and then raised guidance in fiscal 2015 EPS to $3.30-$3.50 from $3.20-$3.40, stronger than consensus of $3.30.
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 Gallup US Payroll to Population
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Notable earnings before today’s open: AMSC, BRLI, CIEN, CMN, JOY, NAV, SJM, TITN, UTIW, VRA
Notable earnings after today’s close: CMTL, COO, DMND, MTN, MW, PAY, RALY, SEAC, THO, ZOES
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers