Before the Open (Jul 9)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China rallied 5.8%, and Hong Kong rallied 3.7%. Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand and Taiwan dropped 0.5 – 0.7%. Europe is currently up across-the-board. Portugal is up more than 3%; Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands and Finland are up more than 2%; London, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Prague, Turkey, Denmark, Russia, Hungary, Spain, Italy and Belgium are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap up open for the cash market.
Podcast with Brandon at Trading Story
The dollar is flat. Oil is up, copper is up. Gold is down, silver is up. Bonds are down.
Are we having fun yet? On Tuesday the S&P rallied 40 off its low. On Wednesday it gave everything back in route to posting a 35-point loss. Today, as of this writing, S&P futures are up 23.
From a technical standpoint I’m not going to call the extreme moves bullish or bearish, but they do remind us with both Greece and China front and center, on any given day the market is capable of a big move.
We’ve been keeping trades short term…swinging for singles…being content with little gains, which add up over time. No big bets right now. No backing up the truck. It’s not ideal, but we don’t have a choice because it’s the environment we’ve been dealt.
No strong opinions here. We don’t know what will happen in Europe, and we don’t know what the reaction will be either. Be conservative. Focus right now is as much on protecting capital as it is to make capital. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Knight Transportation (KNX -0.52%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
Con-way (CNW -3.88%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Credit Suisse.
Regeneron (REGN -1.61%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
J.B. Hunt (JBHT -1.45%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Longbow.
Amgen (AMGN -1.98%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS.
Dunkin’ Brands (DNKN -1.60%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Panera Bread (PNRA -0.47%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell’ at Goldman Sachs.
Conn’s (CONN -2.21%) reports that its June same-store-sales were up +1.1% y/y.
HSBC (HSBC -2.68%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at Exane BNP Paribas.
Costco (COST -0.43%) reports that its June same-store-sales were down 1% y/y.
Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA -1.54%) reported Q3 EPS of $1.02, stronger than consensus of 87 cents.
PepsiCo (PEP -0.82%) jumped over 2% in pre-market trading after it reported Q2 EPS of $1.32, higher than consensus of $1.24.
Yahoo! (YHOO -2.62%) rose over 2% in pre-market tradign after the company said it will roll out a new sports-fantasy service designed for use on mobile devices.
Alcoa (AA -5.06%) reported Q2 EPS of 19 cents, below consensus of 23 cents.
Celgene Rivot reported a 9.1% stake in Juno Therapeutics (JUNO -6.24%).
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
Chain Store Sales
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
12:30 PM Fed’s George: Monetary policy and Economic Outlook
1:00 PM Results of $13B, 30-Year Note Auction
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Notable earnings before today’s open: PEP, SYRG, WBA
Notable earnings after today’s close: CUDA, HELE, PSMT, VOXX
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers