Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. China rallied 3.5%, followed by India (up 2.7%), Japan (up 1.9%) and Hong Kong (up 1%). Europe currently leans to the upside, but Switzerland is down a whopping 9%. Prague is down 1.3%, and Greece is down 0.7%. Germany, France, Italy, Amsterdam and Russia are doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up.
India’s central bank did a rate cut from 8% down to 7.75%…the Indian market closed up 2.7%.
Switzerland scrapped its cap on the franc today to fight recession and deflation threats. The franc soared relative to other currencies. Here’s what the euro did relative to the franc…down more than 14%.
Switzerland’s market did this. It’s off its lows but still down 8.8% as of this writing.
Meanwhile gold did this and is now at its highest level since early September.
And oil did this. First it surged into yesterday’s close (the big move in the middle of the chart below), and this morning it’s up another 2.57% and is above $50 for the first time in eight days.
Lots of stuff going on.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Goldman Sachs downgraded Johnson & Johnson (JNJ -0.73%) to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral.’
Goldman Sachs upgraded Eli Lilly (LLY +0.55%) to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell.’
Fastenal (FAST -2.07%) reported Q4 EPS of 40 cents, right on consensus.
Bank of America (BAC -2.49%) reported Q4 EPS of 32 cents, better than consensus of 31 cents.
BlackRock (BLK -0.64%) reported Q4 EPS of $4.82, higher than consensus of $5.68.
Lennar (LEN -1.12%) reported Q4 EPS of $1.09, better than consensus of 96 cents.
Adobe Systems (ADBE -0.85%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it announced a $2.0 billion stock repurchase plan through fiscal 2017.
Northrop Grumman (NOC +0.07%) was awarded a $963.5M government contract for intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, ground subsystems support.
Ashland (ASH -0.59%) Was initiated with an ‘Overweight’ at Piper Jaffray with a price target of $146.
BlackBerry (BBRY +29.76%) slumped 15% in after-hours trading after it denied a Reuters reports that it was approached by Samsung SSNLF about a potential takeover.
Sanders Capital reported a 5.58% passive stake in D.R. Horton (DHI +1.29%) , a 8.53% passive stake in Ryland Group (RYL +0.41%) and a 10.84% passive stake in Meritage Homes (MTH -1.97%).
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:30 Retail Sales
8:30 Import/Export Prices
10:00 Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
10:00 Business Inventories
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
1:00 PM Results of $13B, 30-Year Note Auction
2:00 PM Fed’s Beige Book
Notable earnings before today’s open: JPM, SJR, WFC
Notable earnings after today’s close: CLC, GEF, FUL
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Jan 15)”
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Have to disagree with Jason. Churning has been very profitable here. Just churn pints not 5 -10 gallons.
Will agree with Jason. This market is very unpredictable.
Unpredictable markets most often end in bullish capitulation (Sometimes the bears capitulate). It may take a few weeks to shake out but I think we are heading for big MOMMO Mother of all money making opportunities.
NASDAQ 4550 or below I am looking to step up to the plate long. No I am not setting up a bunch of limits. I am going to the plate and wait for my pitch.
Little bouncy today maybe. The Swiss are showing the world that one must be careful of one’s friends in Europe. Gold responded and moved up a little. The Dax is up 150 pts.. Asia seems to be looking forward to China making some concessions to world trade. Hold on things are changing- could be a bounce for several days then we test the swing points again around Jan 6,9. Then nothing. No significant consumer spending on lotteries, or anything else. This means things are not good, or worse than everyone suspected.
Switzerland’s central bank on Thursday scrapped its policy of capping the swiss franc at 1.20 to the euro, a surprise move that acknowledges the challenges it has faced in controlling the value of the currency. The unexpected move pushed overnight interest rates to negative 0.25% to negative 1.25% in a bid to reduce the soaring currency. The ripple effect sent gold prices soaring and Swiss stock prices plunging. We’ll see if these ripple effects is overwhelming enough for a minor or major effect on global financial markets as a short or long term shock. What-to-watch list keeps on growing.