Before the Open (Jan 13)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan rallied almost 3%; Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea did better than 1%. China dropped 2.4%. Europe is currently mostly up. London, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Turkey Finland, Spain and Italy are each up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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Report: 12 Reasons to Not Like This Market
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold is down, silver is up. Bonds are down.
The market is going to try again. On Monday, it gapped up, sold off well into negative territory and then salvaged the loss by rallying into the close. Tuesday saw similar action – a bigger gap up, another sell-off into negative territory and then a rally into the close. Today we’ll get another gap up.
One of these days – maybe today – the gap will stick and we’ll get a big up day. We’re due. Many breadth indicators have moved to extreme levels – in fact some have fallen so much, it’s as if we’re at the tail end of a bear market instead of simply coming down hard off a top.
As I said over the weekend and on Monday and Tuesday…it’s too late to go short. In the near term I favor the upside, but overall I see more downside before a lasting rally can materialize.
This is not easy to navigate. There have been a handful of big swings. You make a lot of money right now…you can also lose a lot if you don’t know what you’re doing. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Tyco International PLC (TYC +0.96%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell’ at UBS.
Qualcomm (QCOM +0.98%) was upgraded to ‘Positive’ from ‘Neutral’ at Susquehanna who also raised the price target on the stock to $60 from $53.
Charles Schwab (SCHW +1.74%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Bank of America.
Researcher Gartner said that Q4 global personal-computer shipments fell -8.3% y/y to 75.7 million, the fifth consecutive quarter that PC shipments have declined.
Dr Pepper Snapple Group (DPS +0.13%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Ford Motor (F +0.63%) dropped over 1% in pre-market trading after it projected 2016 North American operating margin of 9.5%, which is below the 10.9% margin through three quarters of 2015.
Yum! Brands (YUM +2.28%) climbed over 3% in after-hours trading after it said its China division December comparable same-store-sales were up +1% y/y.
MetLife (MET +0.67%) jumped over 4% in after-hours trading after it said it plans to pursue separation of U.S. retail operations.
CSX Corp. (CSX +0.77%) fell over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $2.78 billion, below consensus of $2.84 billion, and said that “negative global and industrial market trends” including a strong U.S. dollar, low commodity prices to push EPS down in 2016 versus 2015.
Tractor Supply (TSCO +2.43%) slid over 3% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on its fiscal 2015 EPS estimate to $2.99-$3.00 from an October 21 estimate of $3.02-$3.08, below consensus of $3.08.
Progress Software (PRGS -3.25%) gained 1% in after-hours trading after it projected fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS of $1.59-$1.65, above consensus of $1.55.
Equity One (EQY -1.20%) fell nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it said it will offer 11.4 million shares in a secondary offering.
LendingTree (TREE +5.69%) rose 3% in after-hours trading after it raised guidance on its preliminary yearly revenue estimate to $252.5 million-$253.5 million from an earlier estimate of $244 million-$247 million, above consensus of $246.3 million.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
10:00 Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
1:00 PM Results of $21B, 10-Year Note Auction
1:00 PM Fed’s Evans speech
2:00 PM Fed’s Beige Book
2:00 PM Treasury Budget
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers