Before the Open (Nov 20)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the downside. Taiwan moved up; South Korea, Indonesia, Australia and Singapore moved down. Europe is currently mostly down. Spain is down 2%, Italy; Austria, France and Prague are down more than 1%; London, Germany, Belgium, Amsterdam and Norway are also down noticeably. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is down a small amount. Oil is flat, copper is down. Gold and silver are up.
Wall St. remains a very unexciting place to operate. Volatility has shrunk, volume has declined and the intraday ranges have contracted. It wasn’t long ago the S&P would move 10-15 points during the first hour of trading and 20-30 for the day. Now we’re lucky to get a 12-15 point intraday range and 25 points for the week.
The decline in activity has resulted in less follow through for breakouts…heck just less energy for all moves. But it is what it is. The recent action is much more normal than the month of huge moves we got during October.
The most noticeable recent development has been the divergence between the large and small caps. The large hit a new high two days ago while the small caps have been in declined. Such a divergence can last in the short term, but many more times than not, the small caps pull the market down. Hence my stance to be careful with new longs. Here’s the S&P and Russell over the last eight days.

My stance stays the same. Overall I like the market, but in the near term I’m not overly excited about entering new positions. Wall St. is very boring right now. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Target (TGT +7.39%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Evercore ISI.
Dollar Tree (DLTR +1.03%) reported Q3 EPS of 69 cents ex-items, better than consensus of 64 cents.
Children’s Place (PLCE +1.38%) reported Q3 EPS of $1.70, weaker than consensus of $1.80.
Michaels (MIK -0.50%) reported Q3 EPS of 31 cents, above consensus of 26 cents.
Patterson Cos. (PDCO -0.56%) reported Q2 EPS of 54 cents, better than consensus of 51 cents.
Best Buy (BBY +1.83%) reported Q3 EPS of 32 cents, higher than consensus of 25 cents.
Copa Holdings (CPA +0.85%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of $2.25, well above consensus of $1.99.
Caesar’s (CZR -6.20%) surged over 15% in after-hours trading after Bloomberg reported that Caeser’s released a plan to creditors that it would restructure its operating unit into a REIT.
L Brands (LB +0.45%) slid over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 44 cents, stronger than consensus of 39 cents, and then raised guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS view to $3.21-$3.31 from $3.03-$3.18. This is still on the low end of consensus of $3.31.
Williams-Sonoma (WSM -0.26%) jumped over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 68 cents, better than consensus of 63 cents.
Atento (ATTO +0.56%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 35 cents, less than consensus of 40 cents,
Salesforce.com (CRM -2.32%) fell over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 14 cents, higher than consensus of 13 cents, but then said it sees Q4 EPS of 13 cents-14 cents, below consensus of 15 cents.
Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR -2.01%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 90 cents, well above consensus of 77 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Consumer Price Index
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:00 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Philly Fed Business Outlook
10:00 Existing Home Sales
10:00 Leading Indicators
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
Notable earnings before today’s open: BBY, BKE, BONT, BRC, CYBX, DATE, DCI, DLTR, GLOG, JKS, LQDT, MBLY, PDCO, PERY, PLCE, SMRT, SPB, WBAI
Notable earnings after today’s close: ADSK, ARUN, ASYS, GEOS, GME, GPS, INTU, MENT, MRVL, NGVC, RENN, ROST, SPLK, TFM, WAIR, ZOES
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers