Before the Open (Jun 18)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Happy Fed Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed leaning to the downside. India dropped 1.1%; South Korea, China and Indonesia also dropped noticeably. Japan rallied almost 1%; Taiwan also did well. Europe currently leans to the upside. Russia and Norway are leading the way; otherwise gains are small. Prague and Greece are down. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.

The dollar is down slightly. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down.
The market moved up yesterday for the third straight day. The Russell has completely recaptured last week’s losses; the other indexes aren’t far behind.
I continue to like the market. My indicators tell me we aren’t in full-blown rally mode, but the long side is the only side to be on right now. If things change, fine. But until they do, my bias will be to the long side, and corrections should be used to buy stocks on dips, not go short…unless you’re a slick short term trader.
We have a Fed announcement today. Wall St. expects rates to be kept low and tapering to continue. The Fed doesn’t work in a vacuum. It knows exactly what Wall St. expects (heck, the Fed is partially responsible for shaping Wall St’s views), and it’s very unlikely to rock the boat. I don’t expect any fireworks. Today should pass without any hiccups, and then the market will focus on options expiration.
Options expiration used to cause some volatility as traders unwound positions and/or shifted to the next month out, but with the introduction of weekly options to diffuse pent up energy, the monthly expiration day has become much less important.
The market is likely to be slow until the Fed. Good time to read a book. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
FedEx (FDX +0.62%) reported Q4 EPS of $2.46, better than consensus of $2.36.
Cracker Barrel (CBRL +0.36%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Argus.
Tyson Foods (TSN +0.91%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital.
SunPower (SPWR +4.30%) and GNC Holdings (GNC +2.60%) were both downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Alumina (AWC -1.75%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
Gap (GPS +0.54%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Speculative Buy’ at Canaccord.
Cisco (CSCO -0.12%) was initiated with an ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley witha price target of $30.
Diamond Foods (DMND +5.67%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at KeyBanc.
C.R. Bard (BCR -0.08%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Barclays.
Walgreens (WAG -0.26%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Barclays.
Raymond Stachowiak reported a 9.39% stake in American Shared Hospital (AMS +5.91%) .
Adobe (ADBE -0.12%) gained 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS of 37 cents, well above consensus of 30 cents and said it sees a ‘strong second half of the year.’
La-Z-Boy (LZB +5.12%) slumped 12% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 33 cents, higher than consensus of 32 cents, but reported Q4 revenue of $353.02 million, below consensus of $368.12 million.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:30 Current Account
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC Announcement
2:00 PM FOMC Forecast
2:30 PM Yellen Press Conference
Notable earnings before today’s open: ATU, FDX
Notable earnings after today’s close: JBL, RHT
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers