Before the Open (Jan 6)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Japan and India dropped more than 3%, Taiwan more than 2% and Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong more than 1%. Europe is currently mixed. Russia is leading (up 2%), followed by Italy (up 1.1%) and Germany (up 0.76%). Belgium is down 2.5%. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil is down, copper is flat. Gold and silver are up.
Oil remains the big story. Yesterday it dropped more than 5% and closed right at $50. Today it’s down another bucks and is trading right at $49. It’s a bottomless pit. It’s has been more than cut in half since topping last summer, and there have been no major political issues to drive the action. Analysts will say there’s too much supply. I don’t think so. Perhaps there’s some, but a little too much supply isn’t going to cause the price to get cut in half.
The dollar is near a 10-year high, and commodities (via $CRB) are at their lowest level since early-2009. The gold bugs couldn’t be more wrong. They thought QE would cause runaway inflation. Sorry. Deflation is much more likely and unfortunately much more scary.
As I stated over the weekend and yesterday, we don’t have many good set-ups to play. That’s just the way it goes. Sometimes the market acts well, and we have a hard time narrowing out list. Other times patience is needed because there isn’t much to do. Such is the situation right now. Don’t force trades. Things started to deteriorate last week, and they’ve continued this week. The #1 rule in trading – or at least the first rule – is to make sure the conditions are good or appropriate. Right now they’re not, so continue to be patient. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…

Darden Restaurants (DRI -0.74%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Perform’ at Oppenheimer.
Michael Kors (KORS -2.38%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Credit Suisse.
Valspar (VAL -1.08%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
General Electric (GE -1.84%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank.
H.B. Fuller (FUL -1.99%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at KeyBanc.
Oracle (ORCL -1.67%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Piper Jaffray.
FedEx (FDX -1.54%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
CSX (CSX -2.71%) and Norfolk Southern (NSC -2.53%) were both downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS.
AOL INC. (AOL -1.65%) jumped 12% in pre-market trading after people with knowledge of the matter said Verizon Communications approached the company about a potential acquisition or joint venture.
Helix Energy (HLX -4.85%) said its fiscal 2014 EPS view will be $1.85-$1.95, at the lower end of consensus of $1.95 with fiscal 2014 revenue of $1.11 billion, less than consensus of $1.13 billion, and said the recent slide in oil prices dampens its outlook for 2015.
Point72 Asset reported a 5.9% passive stake in Clearwater Paper (CLW +0.33%) .
Gabelli raiseed its stake in Chiquita (CQB +0.07%) to 9.41% from 8.16%.
Minerva (NERV -1.80%) surged over 70% in after-hours trading after it reported that data on its MIN-301 drug study showed improvements in a range of symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease in primates.
Raging Capital reported a 14.5% stake in A. M. Castle (CAS -9.47%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Gallup US ECI
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
9:45 PMI Services Index
10:00 Factory Orders
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
11:00 Global Composite PMI
11:00 Global Services PMI
Notable earnings before today’s open: CMC, CVGW, LNN
Notable earnings after today’s close: LNDC, MU, SHLM, SONC
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers