Before the Open (Jul 24)

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down across the board. China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and South Korea each fell more than 0.9%. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are quiet and little changed. Turkey, Finland, Italy and Iceland are up the most; South Africa, Kenya, Spain and Bulgaria are down the most. Futures here in the States point towards a slight up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is up. Oil is up, copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
The market is in the midst of a 3-day losing streak…the S&P is now 30 points off its high. This should be considered perfectly normal movement. The index merely moved up to its high and is now pulling off. This drop could turn out to be just like all the others we’ve gotten the last couple months or it could grow to something bigger. We don’t know. Nobody does. Our job is to play the charts and listen closely to the subtle hints from the indicators. In this case, the indicators warned the upside was limited both in terms of time and price. The small caps had been lagging the large caps. The cumulative AD line and cumulative TICK had lagged. The high number of new lows being registered at the same time new highs sat at a healthy level rarely happens and hinted at a disconnected market. And the sheer number of stocks trading above key moving averages had been declining despite the indexes moving to their highs – give or take. You can’t hold out for certain levels. You take what the market offers, and you don’t negotiate for more.
Amazon surprised Wall St. with a big profit (big for them). The stock is up 20% in premarket trading and has nearly doubled this year. It is now bigger than Wal-Mart. Think about that. The list of internet companies that have surpassed the market caps of the Wal-Marts and GE’s of the world is growing.
Over the market is doing just fine – it’s still mostly in consolidation mode.
But over the near and intermediate term the breadth indicators need to improve if any upside headway will be made. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Biogen (BIIB -1.71%) reported Q2 EPS of $4.22, higher than consensus of $4.10.
General Motors (GM +3.96%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at Credit Suisse.
Macy’s (M -0.97%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Atlantic Equities.
C.R. Bard (BCR +0.03%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $2.27, higher than consensus of $2.18.
Stericycle (SRCL -0.46%) reported Q2 EPS of $1.14, better than consensus of $1.13.
E-Trade (ETFC -2.55%) reported Q2 EPS of 25 cents, below consensus of 27 cents.
Boyd Gaming (BYD +0.60%) reported Q2 adjused EPS of 24 cents, more than double consensus of 10 cents.
Juniper (JNPR +1.15%) climbed 10% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q2 EPS of 53 cents, well above consensus of 40 cents.
TripAdvisor (TRIP +1.77%) sank 8% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS of 54 cents, below consensus of 55 cents.
Amazon.com (AMZN -1.25%) surged 18% in after-hours trading after it reported an unexpected Q2 EPS profit of 19 cents, well above consensus of a -14 cents loss.
Stryker (SYK -0.29%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.20, better than consensus of $1.17.
Visa (V -0.31%) rose over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 74 cents, higher than consensus of 59 cents.
Capital One (COF -0.96%) fell over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS ex-items of $1.78, less than consensus of $1.97.
Starbucks (SBUX -0.23%) rose over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 42 cents, above consensus of 41 cents, and then said that its board authorized the repurchase of an additional 50 million shares of the company’s common stock under its ongoing share repurchase program.
AT&T (T -0.99%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 69 cents, better than consensus of 63 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
10:00 New Home Sales
Notable earnings before today’s open: AAL, AAN, ABBV, B, BIIB, BPOP, COG, COL, DTE, ECA, FLIR, FNFG, JCI, LEA, MCO, NS, OCR, OFG, PB, SAVE, SPG, STT, TEN, VFC, VTR, WBC, XRX
Notable earnings after today’s close: none
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers