Before the Open (Jul 26)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China, Hong Kong and South Korea moved up; Japan, India and Malaysia moved down. Europe is mixed and mostly quiet. Denmark is up; Turkey, Russia, Spain and Italy are down. Futures in the States point towards a mixed and flat open for the cash market.
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List of Indexes and ETFs – here
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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold is flat; silver is up. Bonds are up.
Today starts the 2-day FOMC meeting that will culminate in statement tomorrow afternoon. There are very low odds the Fed raises rates – even with the market near its all-time highs. Kind of nuts, huh? After the dot com bubble burst, the market didn’t have to move up much before rates were steadily moved up to 5%. Over the last seven years we’ve gotten one of the greatest rallies in history, and rates are still virtually stuck at 0.
Here’s the S&P over the last 8 days. The indexes has gone up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down. The net change is up, but the range is small, volume has been light and the activity level has been low. It looks like there are a few nice trending moves, but with the range only being 20 points, those moves aren’t very big.

This is not a time to push the accelerator. Between the market being dull, earnings season and the Fed, there are no easy and obvious trades. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Today is a big day for earnings results with 46 of the SPX companies scheduled to report.
Positive earnings results so far this morning include du Pont (DD +0.66%) (1.24 vs consensus of 1.10), Centene (CNC -0.17%) (1.10 vs 1.09), Avery Denison (AVY -0.47%) (1.09 vs 1.01), Waters Corp (WAT -0.64%) (1.58 vs 1.45), DTE Energy (DTE -0.59%) (0.98 vs 0.89), United Technologies ({=UTX) (1.82 vs 1.68), Baxter (BAX -0.47%) (0.46 vs 0.40), Verizon (VZ -0.41%) (0.94 vs 0.92), Masco (MAS +1.30%) (0.46 vs 0.43), Fidelity National Information Services (FIS -0.10%) (0.90 vs 0.87), Valero (VLO +0.82%) (1.07 vs 0.99).
Negative earnings results this morning include Reynolds American (RAI +0.04%) (0.58 vs 0.61), Starwood (HOT +0.18%) (0.71 vs 0.73), KeyCorp (KEY -1.10%) (0.27 vs 0.28), Nielsen (NLSN -1.06%) (0.71 vs 0.715), and Under Armour (UA +1.73%) (0.01 vs 0.04).
Annheuser-Busch InBev (ABI Euronext) raised its offer for SABMiller Plc (SAB London) by 2.3% to 79 billion pounds to account for the Brexit-related plunge in sterling.
Commerzbank AG (CMZB) is down nearly 5% this morning after reporting a deterioration of a capital strength ratio and helped drag down other European banks ahead of Friday’s stress-test results.
CoreLogic (CLGX -0.69%) rallied +6% in after-hours trading on positive earnings results along with higher 2016 guidance and a boost in full-year repurchase target.
Texas Instruments (TXN +1.11%) rallied +5% in after-hours trading on positive earnings results of 76 cents vs expectations of 72 cents.
Celgene (CELG +0.38%) fell -3% in after-hours trading on disappointing news about its “Remarc” product.
Las Vegas Sands (LVS +1.01%) rallied +3% in after-hours trading despite weaker-than-expected earnings results as the company indicated a possible turnaround in Macau.
Gilead Sciences (GILD +2.31%) fell -4% in after-hours trading after reducing its 2016 sales forecast.
MB Financial (MBFI +0.26%) will replace First Niagra (FNFG) in the S&P MidCap 400.
Monday’s Key Earnings
Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) -4.7% AH on disappointing Harvoni sales.
Kimberly-Clark (NYSE:KMB) -1.5% after weak guidance.
Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) +4.5% AH with a Macau turnaround.
Sprint (NYSE:S) +27.1% following record subscriber growth.
Texas Instruments (NASDAQ:TXN) +6% AH after beating expectations.
Today’s Economic Calendar
FOMC meeting begins
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
9:00 S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index
9:45 PMI Services Index Flash
10:00 Consumer Confidence
10:00 State Street Investor Confidence Index
10:00 Richmond Fed Mfg.
10:00 New Home Sales
1:00 PM Results of $34B, 5-Year Note Auction
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers