Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Indonesia moved up; Malaysia and India moved down. Europe currently leans to the upside. Russia is up 3.1%; London, Germany, France, Spain and Amsterdam are up more than 1%. Stockholm and Greece are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a relatively big gap up for the cash market.
The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down.
Very quickly the S&P 500 dropped 100 points off its high from just a week ago – the first couple down days coming on light volume when few were paying attention; then things accelerated as soon as the New Year’s ball dropped.
The indicators have been heading down.
There has been a complete lack of good set-ups to play…this is a good thing because we didn’t get trapped in any bad positions.
Former leadership stocks and groups have been nowhere to be found…in fact gold and silver have out-performed recently.
All signs pointed towards a rest in the near term, which is why in the Weekly Report posted over the weekend I stated the market needed a breather.
Patience is needed. If you’re a day trader, you can do your thing. Most days off a few opportunities nail a few intraday moves and earn a living. If you’re a swing trader, the first order of business is making sure the market conditions are good. This means you may have to wait a few days or weeks, but then you get to jump on a couple trades and make up for lost time. Forcing trades, churning your account – bad for your account balance and bad for your confidence. How many times have you looked back at the end of a month and said: “geez if I would have only done those two trades, I would have been better off than I am now?” I know I have.
There isn’t much to work with right now. The market moved straight down, then straight up and now straight down. Charts of individual stocks are a mess and not setting up in any recognizable patterns. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Eli Lilly (LLY +0.50%) said it sees fiscal 2015 adjusted EPS of $3.10-$3.20, lower than consensus of $3.21 and that it sees fiscal 2015 revenue of $20.3 billion-$20.8 billion, below consensus of $20.88 billion.
Joy Global (JOY -2.07%) and Terex (TEX -3.23%) were both downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at KeyBanc.
The WSJ reports that 3G is discussing a possible acquisition of PepsiCo (PEP -0.76%) or Campbell Soup (CPB -0.67%) .
UnitedHealth (UNH -0.20%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Cigna (CI +0.40%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Sanofi (SNY +2.52%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Viking Global Investors reported a 5.5% passive stake in Mohawk (MHK -0.89%) .
J.C. Penney (JCP +1.86%) surged 19% in pre-market trading after it reported Nov/Dec same-store-sales were up 3.7%, at the upper end of guidance range of 2.0% – 4.0%.
Point72 Asset reported a 6.0% passive stake in Shutterfly (SFLY -3.85%) .
Point72 Asset reported an 8.7% passive stake in Kindred Healthcare (KND -1.44%) .
Nordstrom (JWN -0.63%) and Signet Jewelers (SIG -2.35%) were both initiated with an ‘Outperform’ at Cowen.
American Eagle (AEO +0.36%) was upgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Underperform’ at Cowen.
Micron (MU -2.69%) fell 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 97 cents, better than consensus of 92 cents, but reported Q1 revenue of $4.57 billion, below consensus of $4.62 billion. Micron also said it expects Q2 revenue of $4.1 billion-$4.3 billion, below consensus of $4.53 billion.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:15 ADP Jobs Report
8:30 Gallup U.S. Job Creation Index
8:30 International Trade
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC minutes
Notable earnings before today’s open: GBX, MON, MSM, RPM, SVU
Notable earnings after today’s close: MG, WDFC
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Jan 7)”
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its happening once again crushing the ECB’s credibility, the “good news”, and the reason stocks took off the moment deflation was noticed, is that algos are desperately hoping this finally unleashes Eurozone QE, perhaps as soon as three weeks from now when the ECB is said to be discussing three different options. launching QE now would crush any impetus for further reforms. He is right, but algos don’t care. At least not for now, and as a result futures are sharply higher on both sides of the Atlantic.
confusion reigns but look for an up day in the US and nay just one day.
Jason,you completely misunderstand what a day trader is
a daytrader can make or loose more in 2 hours than what a swing trader can in 2 months
its a highly leveraged [100 to one ] trade with 10 times larger parcels than a non leveraged swing trader buying/selling mother stocks
its not done with efts or opts
its futures trading indexes and the only thing that compares to it is currency trading at 100 to one leverage
it has its own trading plan and risk management
the above said and this volitility is great
imo the usd is close to a top for a pull back and the euro cant go much lower on this swing or wave
the high usd will hurt earnings this quarter and a rate hike will be great to destroy the bulls
i will only be a bull when the chinese yaun floats free on the gold standard and destroys the current ponsi enviroment
down with these artifical markets we have had since uncle ben