Before the Open (Sep 3)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Singapore and India rallied 1% or more. Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan also did well. Australia fell 1.4%. Europe is currently mostly up. Greece is up more than 2%; London, Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark, Finland, Hungary and Italy are up more than 1%. Outside Europe, South Africa is also doing very well. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is flat. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up.
Browsing the internet, I see many market participants have gotten pretty bearish lately. It’s one of the reasons I’m maintaining my near term up bias. Even though overall I think the lows get tested and taken out, in the near term – next week or so – I see prices moving higher.
Yesterday I recorded a video highlighting what needs to take place for me to believe a rally has legs. In short, if the market moves up, I’ll want to see the AD line move up, an expansion of new highs, the percentage of stocks above their 50 and 200-day MAs to move up, the bullish percent charts to move up and volatility to contract. No surprises here. Absent significant improvement from these breadth indicators, which tell us the internal strength and weakness of the market, any move up will not last long or go far.


Up in the near term…then down hard again…then up into the end of the year. That’s my thesis right now. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Ciena (CIEN +2.23%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 37 cents, higher than consensus of 34 cents.
eBay (EBAY +1.47%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underweight’ at Piper Jaffray.
Illinois Tool Works (ITW +1.04%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Schlumberger (SLB -0.01%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Emerson (EMR +1.12%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Xylem (XYL +0.80%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel.
Medtronic PLC (MDT +2.91%) reported Q1 EPS of 64 cents, well below consensus of $1.01.
Campbell Soup (CPB +1.92%) reported Q4 EPS of 41 cents, less than consensus of 43 cents.
Joy Global (JOY -0.76%) reported Q3 EPS of 54 cents, below consensus of 60 cents.
Universal Insurance (UVE -0.94%) announced a new $10 million share repurchase program.
Lannett (LCI +4.63%) jumped 9% in after-hours trading after it announced that it will acquire Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals For $1.23 billion.
Hillenbrand (HI +0.08%) will acquire ABEL Pumps from Roper Technologies ({=ROP for 95 million euros.
NCI Building (NCS -0.40%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 15 cents, above consensus of 14 cents.
Verint Systems (VRNT -0.63%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 70 cents, better than consensus of 68 cents.
Catalent (CTLT +1.71%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 61 cents, higher than consensus of 58 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
Chain Store Sales
7:30 Challenger Job-Cut Report
8:30 Gallup US Payroll to Population
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 International Trade
9:45 PMI Services Index
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 Money Supply
4:30 Fed Balance Sheet
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers