Good morning. The advance continues despite a lack of supporting good news. Call it hope or a lull in bad news, the near term bias appears to be higher. After-hours and pre-market activity tend to be good indicators (and often good trading opportunities) and the action there of late has been clearly positive.
Why should anyone be surprised? despite the ugly and unfortunate continuation of pork spending even in these dire economic times, the fact remains that a record amount of economic stimulus has been and will be injected into our beleaguered economy. This will have a supporting and eventually growth stimulative effect. The markets will recover before the economy so don't wait for your neighbor get their job back before you buy back in. Now is the time. This morning's stats and commentary below.
U.S. PRE-MARKET INDICATORS
-Dow Industrial futures up 65 points.
-S&P 500 futures up 9 points.
-Nasdaq futures up 6 points.
-Nasdaq-100 Pre-Market Indicator up 5.39 at 1267.91.
GLOBAL SENTIMENT
Nikkei up 0.4%.
Hang Seng down 0.4%
FTSE up 1.3%
PRE-MARKET SECTOR WATCH
(+) Large cap tech: mostly higher
(+) Chip stocks: higher
(-,+) Small cap stocks: mixed
(-,+) Drug stocks: mixed
(+) Software stocks: higher
(+,-) Internet stocks: mixed
(+) Financial stocks: higher
(+) Auto stocks: higher
(=,-) Airline stocks: flat to lower
(-,+) Retail stocks: mixed
UPSIDE MOVERS
(+) AAPL (+1.1%) is off pre-market highs but still firmer as analyst upgrade follows update on CEO Steve Jobs' health.
(+) DOW (+3.9%) says it'll pursue legal action over withdrawn Kuwait deal.
DOWNSIDE MOVERS
(-) LH (-4.5%) cuts 2009 guidance.
(-) NTAP (-1%) downgraded by RBC.
(-) LDK (-10.4%) continues sharp evening decline seen after reduced guidance.
(-) NOK (-0.9%) gets analyst downgrade.
(-) ICE (-2.6%) gets two analyst downgrades.
(-) MCRL (-9.7%) cuts Q4 guidance.
(-) LOGI (-5.3%) drops guidance, cutting jobs.
MARKET DIRECTION
Stock futures continue to point to a firmer open for the broad
stock indexes after Wall Street took a break Monday from a New Year's
bear-market rally.
November factory orders, the Institute of Supply Management's
non-manufacturing index for December, and November pending home sales
are all due for release at 10 a.m. ET. Fed meeting minutes will be
released at 2 p.m. ET.
February crude oil topped $50 a barrel in electronic trading.
Escalating gas disputes between Russia and Ukraine and continued deadly
fighting in the Gaza Strip raised concerns for production and
distribution and put upward pressure on prices.
Gold fell for a third session on a stronger dollar. The dollar and
most major currencies gained on the euro after declining euro-zone
inflation data were seen as a greenlight for more aggressive
interest-rate cuts in the region.
Active-volume, news-driven movers this morning include:
Apple (AAPL), up about 1.5% after an upgrade in the wake of reassuring comments on CEO Steve Jobs' health.
LDK Solar (LDK), down 11%, said in Monday's extended hours that it
expects Q4 revenue in the range of $425 to $435 mln and wafer shipments
between 245 and 255 MW, below previous guidance of revenue in the range
of $555 mln to $565 mln and wafer shipments in the range of 260 to 270
MW. The Street view is $541 mln in revenue. FY09 revenue is seen in a
range of $2.3 to $2.5 bln, vs. Street expectations of $2.6 bln.
Dow Chemical (DOW), up 3.7%, says it will seek legal, operational
and financial actions to enforce its rights under a failed
joint-venture deal with Kuwait's Petrochemical. Dow Chemical said it
has been approached by other potential business partners, and that it
is determined to fulfill its transformational strategy pursued since
2009.
Shares of Rohm & Haas (ROH) had been under pressure as its
acquisition by Dow Chemical looked by some to be in jeopardy without
the Kuwait deal as a funding source. Dow had said access to other
funding would keep its acquisition on track. ROH is trading just
positive.
Post-bell earnings: RECN, ANGO, among others.