Before the Open (Feb 3)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with relatively big losses. Japan fell more than 3%, Hong Kong and Australia more than 2%, and India, Malaysia and Singapore dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece, Denmark and Finland are down more than 2%; Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down.
Some interesting stock news out today…
Amazon is going to open 300-400 books stores nationwide. Interesting. So as virtually every ma and pop store has gone out of business…Borders no longer exists…Barnes & Noble is struggling…AMZN is going to open physical retail operations. It’s a curious move. Amazon is a very innovative company. I can’t wait to see what they do.
Yahoo is up for sale…or at least on the chopping block. I don’t know what time line they’re working with, but the company won’t stay independent as it currently is.
3M is raising its quarterly dividend and buying back about $10B worth of shares. Gilead also announced a dividend boost and buyback.
The investigation into Chipotle is renewed. After CMG bounced 20% off its low over the last month, the stock is gapping down about 6% today.
On the index front, since bottoming two weeks ago, the S&P has posted 5 up days and 5 down days – not exactly robust buying. It more closely resembles the August low that needed to do a double bottom, not the September low, which rallied forcefully for a month.
Oil rallied more than 20% off its low but has since given back a big chunk.
Meanwhile utilities are breaking out.
Sluggish market…weak oil…strong utilities. This is not characteristic of a healthy market.
My overall bias remains to the downside. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Intel (INTC -3.31%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell’ at Goldman Sachs.
Merck & Co. (MRK -0.67%) reported Q4 EPS of 93 cents, higher than consensus of 91 cents.
Marathon Petroleum (MPC -3.59%) reported Q4 EPS ex-charge of 79 cents, better than consensus of 69 cents.
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG +0.64%) declined over 6% in pre-market trading after it said it received a subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California expanding the scope of a federal criminal probe into a norovirus outbreak in California.
Yahoo! (YHOO -1.72%) fell over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 13 cents, better than consensus of 12 cents, but said it sees Q1 adjusted Ebitda of $100 million-$120 million, below consensus of $181 million.
Edwards Lifesciences (EW -2.45%) gained over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 63 cents, better than consensus of 60 cents, and then raised guidance on fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS to $2.57-$2.67 from a December forecast of $2.30-$2.40, above consensus of $2.41.
IAC/Interactive (IAC -2.08%) slid over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 75 cents, well below consensus of 92 cents.
Gilead Sciences (GILD -1.59%) rose 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of $3.32, higher than consensus of $2.99.
Barnes & Noble (BKS -5.38%) slid nearly 2% in after-hours trading after the WSJ reported that Amazon said it plans 300 to 400 physical bookstores nationwide.
Match Group (MTCH -4.69%) dropped over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $267.6 million, below consensus of $275.9 million.
Boot Barn Holdings (BOOT -13.73%) climbed over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 45 cents, above consensus of 44 cents.
Oclaro (OCLR +3.97%) jumped 9% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 profit from continuing operations of 3 cents, above consensus of 1 cent.
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
8:30 Treasury Refunding Quarterly Announcement
9:45 PMI Services Index
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers