Before the Open (Feb 18)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan, Hong Kong and Australia rallied more than 2%; Singapore, India, South Korea and Taiwan did better than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Germany, Norway, Russia, Denmark and Finland are up more than 1%; France, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy and Portugal are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.
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Top Shelf Trading – eMagazine – I was featured in here this month.
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The dollar is up. Oil is up, copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
The market has logged its first 3-day win streak since December and its biggest 3-day gain since September. Not bad. The biggest rallies take place within downtrends, so this is par for the course.
In my opinion, the “wrong” groups are leading. Industrial metals, gold, utilities – they’ve been doing very well. These groups aren’t big enough to lead – there aren’t enough stocks, and the combined market cap isn’t high enough to absorb serious demand.
Here’s an update of the daily S&P chart. Over the last seven months, the indexes experienced a quick, 1-week drop in August, a month-long rally in October and a 2-week drop to start the year. Otherwise there’s been lots of up and down movement, lots of gaps, lots of volatility and a complete lack of directional movement. This is characteristic of a top/beginning of downtrend – most of the movement takes place in a small number of days.

There’ll be some resistance at 1950 (if it gets there), but the big number is 2000. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
NVIDIA (NVDA +2.48%) jumped nearly 8% in pre-market trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 52 cents, higher than consensus of 43 cents.
Wal-Mart (WMT +0.32%) slid 3% in pre-market tradng after it reported Q4 revenue of $129.7 billion, below consensus of $130.6 billion, and cut its yearly sales forecast to “relatively flat” from a previous view of up 3%-4%.
Brocade Communications Systems (BRCD +3.02%) rallied over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 29 cents, above consensus of 24 cents.
Williams Cos. (WMB +4.53%) lost over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS continuing operations of 1 cent, weaker than consensus of 27 cents.
Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT +5.42%) rose over 5% in after-hours trading after departing CFO Barbara Duncan said she will delay her departure date of June 30 if no successor is in office by that time.
CF Industries (CF +1.80%) fell over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 76 cents, below consensus of 82 cents.
Synopsys (SNPS +1.51%) climbed 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 68 cents, above consensus of 62 cents and then raised guidance on Q2 adjusted EPS to 78 cents-81 cents, above consensus of 70 cents.
Marriott International (MAR +2.49%) dropped over 2% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on Q1 EPS to 81 cents-85 cents, weaker than consensus of 89 cents.
Capital One Financial (COF +1.51%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading after it said its board authorized an additional $300 million to its stock buyback plan.
ARRIS International PLC (ARRS +2.11%) dropped 5% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q1 adjusted EPS of 37 cents-42 cents, below consensus of 53 cents.
Tyler Technologies (TYL +3.47%) slip nearly 8% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 59 cents, below consensus of 66 cents, and then lowered guidance on fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS to $3.33-$3.45, below consensus of $3.55.
Jack in the Box (JACK +2.68%) tumbled 20% in pre-market trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 93 cents, below consensus of $1.03.
Lattice Semiconductor (LSCC unch) slid over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $101.3 million, below consensus of $110.3 million.
Aerie Pharmaceuticals (AERI +6.46%) jumped 15% in after-hours trading after it reported successful 12-month safety results in its Phase 3 trial for its Rhopressa once-daily eye drop for its ability to lower intraocular pressure in patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension.
Ingram Micro (IM +0.78%) surged over 20% in after-hours trading after Tianjin Tianhai bought the company for $6 billion or $38.90 a share.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Wednesday’s Key Earnings
Barrick Gold (NYSE:ABX) -2.4% AH despite a smaller quarterly loss.
CF Industries (NYSE:CF) -4.5% AH as fertilizer prices weakened.
GoDaddy (NYSE:GDDY) -5.2% AH after a strong dollar weighed on results.
Marriott (MAR) -2.5% AH as revenue fell short of estimates.
NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) +1.8% AH after disclosing major workforce cuts.
Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM)-2.9% AH on weaker than expected earnings.
Noble Energy (NYSE:NBL) +6.2% after posting an unexepected profit.
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) +7.2% AH on higher chip demand, strong guidance.
Priceline (NASDAQ:PCLN) +11.2% following an increase in hotel bookings.
T-Mobile (NASDAQ:TMUS) +1.1% after tripling profits.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 Philly Fed Business Outlook
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Leading Indicators
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
11:00 EIA Petroleum Inventories
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers