Before the Open (Mar 4)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, India and Indonesia posted noticeable losses. China moved up 0.5%. Europe currently leans to the downside. Stockholm, Norway and Russia are down more than 1%; Austria and Greece are also down. There are no big winners. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil is up, copper is up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are mixed.
The market, per the indexes, has been pretty boring lately. In fact the S&P has traded in a 22-point range the last seven days. Compared to December, January and the first half of February where the S&P would easily move 20-30 points per day, the current ranges are tiny. Rallies are getting sold and dips are getting bought.
At the end of last week I started saying the upside was limited, both in terms of time and price, unless the breadth indicators, which had started diverging from the price action, quickly improved. It hasn’t happened so far, but the market hasn’t moved down much. Perhaps it will correct with time rather than a price drop. We’ll see. Until we get some downside movement that enables the charts to reset or enough time passes to enable the breadth indicators cycle down, all new long trades should have a short leash.
Here’s the S&P. There’s nothing wrong with the overall price action. But building gains on top of gains is tough, so I’d like to see a dip before an attempt to move higher begins.

No big bets right now. The market is in good shape overall, but in the near term I’m neutral.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Alcoa (AA +1.54%) and Century Aluminum (CENX -1.44%) were both downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS +1.05%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Needham.
Best Buy (BBY +1.42%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at Wedbush.
Halyard Health (HYH -0.92%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of $1.59, well above consensus of 77 cents.
Trina Solar (TSL +1.19%) reported Q4 EPS of 13 cents, right on consensus, although Q4 revenue of $705.04 million was higher than consensus of $642.88 million.
AutoZone (AZO +0.36%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at Sterne Agee.
VWR (VWR -0.76%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 43 cents, higher than consensus of 37 cents.
McDonald’s (MCD -0.26%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Sector Perform’ at RBC Capital.
ABM Industries (ABM -0.16%) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 38 cents, better than consensus of 34 cents, and then raised guidacne on fiscal 2015 adjusted EPS view to $1.75-$1.85, above consensus of $1.75.
Air France-KLM (AFLYY +0.91%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Cascade Investment reported a 7.9% stake in Strategic Hotels (BEE -1.82%) .
Engility Holdings (EGL -1.40%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 67 cents, less than consensus of 69 cents.
Bob Evans (BOBE +0.27%) plunged over 15% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 60 cents, below consensus of 70 cents, and then lowered guidance on fiscal 2015 EPS view to $1.40-$1.60 from $1.90 to $2.10, weaker than consensus of $1.97.
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
9:00 Fed’s Evans: U.S. Economy and Monetary Policy
9:45 PMI Services Index
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
1:00 PM Fed’s George: U.S. Economy
2:00 PM Fed’s Beige Book
Notable earnings before today’s open: AEO, AMED, ANF, ARQL, ATHM, BF.B, DSX, GTXI, HYH, INXN, LXRX, MTLS, PETM, SCMP, SOL, SSP, TOUR, TSL, W
Notable earnings after today’s close: ALIM, ALSK, BIOL, BREW, CPE, DAR, ERJ, GEF, GTY, HRB, JONE, PEIX, POWR, PPO, PQ, RNDY, SMTC, SPOK, SQNM, VSLR, WTI
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers