Before the Open (Feb 10)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the downside. China (up 1.5%), Singapore (up 0.5%) and India (up 0.5%) did the best. South Korea (down 0.6%) and Indonesia (down 0.5%) pulled up the rear. Europe is currently mostly up. Greece is up 5.2%, followed by Spain (up 1.7%), Italy (up 1.4%), Prague (up 1.1%), Austria and France (up 1%) and Germany (up 0.7%). Norway is down 0.7%. Futures here in the States point towards a relatively big gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
The market dropped yesterday to add to Friday’s pullback. This put the indexes back in their January ranges, but as I stated after yesterday’s close, I still lean to the upside. I’ve seen enough improvement from the indicators to tilt my bias up. Absent major news that suddenly changes things, odds favor the highs being tested, but beyond that, who knows. Other than the mid caps, which hit a new high last week, the other indexes are still range bound, and until the consolidation patterns get broken, we cannot assume any move will have legs.
Oil has improved a bunch the last week+ but I wouldn’t consider it in an uptrend yet. The first move up is the easy move – lots of short covering. Now it’s consolidating, and it’ll take real buying by those who trade longer time frames to push crude up more. Citi is calling for $20 oil. We’ll see. Right now I like oil long, but I will not overstay my welcome. Quick trades only right now.
That’s it for now. The S&P dropped about 9 yesterday, and currently S&P futures are up 13. I continue to like the upside, and since nothing happened yesterday to change anything I wrote about over the weekend, there’s no reason to fill up space here when my conclusions are the same. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide (HOT -0.60%) reported Q4 EPS of 97 cents, better than consensus of 76 cents.
Reynolds American (RAI -0.80%) reported Q4 EPS of 87 cents, right on consensus.
Regeneron Pharmaeuticals (REGN -1.75%) reported Q4 EPS of $2.79, below consensus of $2.82.
Wyndham Worldwide (WYN -1.27%) reported Q4 EPS of 90 cents, higher than consensus of 84 cents.
Molson Coors Brewing (TAP -1.06%) reported Q4 EPS of 55 cents, below consensus of 69 cents.
Bank of NY Mellon reported 7.72% passive stake in Dun & Bradstreet (DNB -1.78%) .
Crown Holdings (CCK -0.72%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 48 cents, right on consensus.
Pembroke Management reported a 6.83% passive stake in Healthstream (HSTM -0.49%) and a 7.85% passive stake in Franklin Covey (FC -1.60%) .
Molina Healthcare (MOH -2.36%) reported Q4 EPS of 69 cents, higher than consensus of 61 cents.
Franklin Resources reported a 5.7% passive stake in Sensient (SXT -5.61%) .
Aeropostale (ARO +5.18%) surged over 15% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $594.5 million, better than consensus of $577.67 million, and then raised guidance on Q4 EPS to a loss of -1 cent to -6 cents, better than consensus of -27 cents.
Urban Outfitters (URBN -0.44%) rose over 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $1.01 billion, above consensus of $997.69 million.
The Gap (GPS -1.65%) fell over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported January same-store-sales were down 3% versus positive 1% last year.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
9:00 NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
10:00 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
10:00 Wholesale Trade
1:00 PM Results of $24B, 3-Year Note Auction
Notable earnings before today’s open: ACM, ALLT, ALR, CDW, CVS, CYNO, DF, ENTG, GWR, HCP, HNT, HOT, IMN, KKR, KO, MLM, MWW, NILE, NSP, OMC, OUBS, PCG, RAI, REGN, SALE, SAVE, SEE, SFUN, TAP, TLM, WYN
Notable earnings after today’s close: ACGL, AKAM, ANDE, ATEN, BLKB, CAP, CERN, CRL, ELON, FRT, FTI, GHDX, GNW, HIW, JIVE, KGC, LOCK, MKTO, NCR, OHI, PAYC, PXD, RKUS, RLOC, RPXC, SCI, SGEN, SGMO, SKT, THOR, TMH, TRMB, TSRA, USNA, VSAT, WSH, WU, XOOM
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers