Before the Open (Oct 15)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Indonesia, Australia, Japan and China each rallied 0.6 – 0.9%. Taiwan dropped 1.3%. Europe is currently getting hit hard. Greece is down 5.5%, and Italy is down 2.34%. Spain, London, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Amsterdam, Norway, Stockholm and Prague are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
The market did well yesterday during the morning session, but then sold off during and after lunch. The small caps posted decent gains, but they closed well off their highs. The other indexes posted small gains and also closed well off their highs. The bulls can’t catch a bid that lasts very long. As the old saying goes: Bull markets won’t let you in, bear markets won’t let you out. Anyone who has been waiting to exit longs on a decent multi-day bounce is still waiting. That’s how the market works. It moves to make sure the least number of people participate on the way up and the most number of people get stuck in positions on the way down.
The trend is down, it’s been down, so of course my bias remains to the downside. But unfortunately the risk/reward for entering new shorts isn’t very good right now. So many stocks have taken big hits the last month – many in virtual free falls – that chasing lower should only be done by skilled short term traders – those who can manage trades during the inevitable bounces that happen along the way. We’ve had many good trades the last month, but I think toning down our aggressiveness is a good idea.
This is the Wild Wild West. Moves that used to take all day are taking place in an hour. Make adjustments or get stampeded. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Intel (INTC +2.13%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM -0.29%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Argus with a price target of $65.
CBS (CBS +2.09%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Sanofi (SNY -0.10%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
BlackRock (BLK +0.93%) reported Q3 EPS of $5.21, well ahead of consensus of $4.66.
PNC Financial Services Group (PNC +0.67%) reported Q3 EPS of $1.72, higher than consensus of $1.70.
Bank of America (BAC +0.73%) reported Q3 EPS of 40 cents, higher than consensus of 32 cents.
St. Jude Medical (STJ -1.17%) reported Q3 EPS of 97 cents, better than consensus of 96 cents.
Shannon River reported a 5.2% passive stake in WebMD (WBMD +2.35%) .
Heineken (HEINY -0.95%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Point72 Asset Management reported a 5.2% passive stake in Aegerion (AEGR -1.10%) .
CSX (CSX +2.87%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 51 cents, better than consensus of 48 cents.
Intel (INTC +2.13%) climbed nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 66 cents, higher than consensus of 65 cents, and said it sees Q4 revenue of $14.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million, which is better than consensus of $14.49 billion.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:30 Producer Price Index
8:30 Retail Sales
8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
10:00 Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
10:00 Business Inventories
2:00 PM Fed’s Beige Book
Notable earnings before today’s open: ASML, BAC, BLK, CBSH, IGTE, KEY, MTG, PNC, STJ
Notable earnings after today’s close: AF, AXP, BGG, BMI, EBAY, EPB, KMI, KMP, LVS, NFLX, RLI, UMPQ, URI
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers