Before the Open (May 26)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up, but other than India (up 1.9%), gains are small. Europe is currently mostly up. Russia and Austria are up more than 1%; Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Finland and Belgium are also doing well. Spain is weak. Futures in the States point to a slight up open for the cash market.
The dollar is down a little. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up.
Yesterday the market followed through on its previous days’s gain. It wasn’t a resounding victory because all the gains were in place in the opening 15 minutes. Still, simply holding the gains is good enough. The bulls now have a lot of wiggle room. The market is still in consolidation mode, but nothing is urgent right now. Nobody has to defend their turf. Other than a huge move that has some meaning, Nothing that happens the next two days will matter much.
Yesterday’s biggest story was the movement of gold & silver and oil.
Gold and silver opened weak and sold off with some intensity during early trading…but then the stocks bottomed and rallied with force. By the close, gains were in place and long lower tails on the candles had formed. There are many who got shaken out on the drop and are now fearful they’ll miss the ride up. This is exactly how Wall St works. It either doesn’t let you in (because moves keep going and going and don’t give you an entry) or they pullback enough to scare you (so you hesitate getting in).
Oil also did well. Many oil stocks we’ve been playing lately posted huge gains.
Many tech stocks have made comebacks. NFLX, AAPL and others have bounced off multi-month lows.
My bias remains to the upside, but until the market breaks out of its range, I don’t think you can assume standard trades are anything but quickies meant to make a quick buck. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Yahoo! (YHOO -5.17%) rose nearly 4% in pre-market trading after people familiar with the matter said AT&T made a bid for the company.
HP Inc. (HPQ +2.43%) gained 2% in European trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS continuing operations of 41 cents, better than consensus of 38 cents.
Williams-Sonoma (WSM +2.40%) climbed over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 53 cents, higher than consensus of 50 cents.
NetApp (NTAP +1.23%) sank nearly 8% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 55 cents, weaker than consensus of 58 cents, and said it sees Q1 adjusted EPS of 34 cnts-30 cents, below consensus of 45 cents
PVH (PVH +0.91%) climbed over 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $1.50, higher than consensus of $1.43, and then raised guidance on full-year adjusted EPS to $6.45-$6.55 from a March 23 view of $6.30-$6.50.
Infoblox (BLOX +0.87%) lost over 3% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q4 adjusted EPS of 5 cents-7 cents, below consensus of 7 cents.
Guess? (GES +1.17%) fell nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on full-year adjusted EPS to 55 cents-75 cents from a March 16 estimate of 65 cents-85 cents, below consensus of 77 cents,
Trinity Industries (TRN +4.63%) gained almost 1% in after-hours trading after it reported a new $940 million order for wind towers.
CSRA (CSRA +0.79%) lost nearly 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 50 cents, better than consensus of 48 cents, but Q4 revenue of $1.29 billion was below consensus of $1.31 billion.
The Rubicon Project (RUBI +1.53%) slipped 3% in after-hours trading after CFO Todd Tappin resigned to assume the role of president at another company.
WebMD Health (WDMD) dropped over 4% in after-hours trading after it announced that it will offer $300 million of convertible notes due 2023 in a private placement.
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (PLKI -0.46%) slid nearly 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 58 cents, below consensus of 64 cents.
Lions Gate Entertainment (LGF +0.20%) jumped over 13% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 26 cents, well above consensus of 2 cents.
Pure Storage (PSTG +1.10%) tumbled 15% in after-hours trading after it reported that its Q1 operating margin dropped -45.6% versus -28.6% q/q.
Cempra (CEMP +3.43%) climbed nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it said its solithromycin had successful results in its Phase 2 study of community-acquire bacterial pneumonia conducted by Japanese partner Toyama Chemical.
Paragon Shipping (PRGN -0.63%) plunged nearly 50% in after-hours trading after it received a notice of non-compliance from NASDAQ because the company’s stockholders’ equity as of Dec 31, 2015 was below the $2.5 million requirement. Therefore, the company no longer meets requirement for the NASDAQ and will have to transfer its listing to the OTC market.
Thursday’s Key Earnings
AutoZone (NYSE:AZO) +3% on rising same-store sales.
Best Buy (NYSE:BBY) -7.5% after disappointing guidance.
HP Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) +10.9%; Computer Sciences (NYSE:CSC) +27.7% AH on their spinoff/merger plans.
Intuit (NASDAQ:INTU) -2.2% AH despite a strong tax season.
Toll Brothers (NYSE:TOL) +8.7% as home prices increased.
Today’s Economic Calendar
5:15 Fed’s Bullard: U.S. Monetary and Economic Policy
8:30 Durable Goods
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Pending Home Sales
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
11:00 Kansas City Fed Mfg Survey
12:15 PM Fed’s Powell: U.S. Monetary and Economic Policy
1:00 PM Results of $28B, 7-Year Note Auction
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