(By Rich Bieglmeier) The Republicans are done, now Mr. Bernanke is on the clock. Stocks will look to the fed chief to blow some air into them with his Jackson Hole speech; especially since the indexes rolled-over Thursday on weak economic news out of Europe.
A bloody tape solidified the bearish MACD cross-unders for the NASDAQ, Dow, and S&P 500. If the Mr. Bernanke doesn't lift stocks today, the trio could droop to their respective 50-day averages, 12,930 for the Dow, 1.375 for the S&P, and most likely the NASDAQ will stop at the 26-day average of 3.022 before falling further. Although, volume was so light that any bump in buying could wipe out the day's losses within minutes.
Thursday's Jobless Claims and Personal Income & Outlays reports were OK as income and spending hit the street's mark, and 4,000 more claims than expected were filed. The mundane results had little to impact on equities in our view. It's just more of the same.
Routine shouldn't define today's action. If Ben says no QE3, the indexes could hit our 50-day targets before the final bell rings. On the other hand, hint that more Wall Street welfare is in September 12th's mail, then stocks are likely to finish the week just about where they started. As the Senior Senator from New York said, "Get to work" Mr. Bernanke! At least that's what long traders are hoping to hear.
Earnings slow to a crawl in the week ahead, and only two companies managed to pass our iEstimates criteria. The good news is that when the number of companies reporting is few, all eyes focus on the quarterly checkups that standout.
Have a great Labor Day and we will see you on Tuesday.
| Company | Ticker | Next EPS
Report Date | EPS | iEstimate | Surprise | % Surprise |
| Globecomm Systm | GCOM | 09/03/2012 | $0.20 | $0.25 | $0.05 | 25% |
| Sigma Designs | SIGM | 09/04/2012 | -$0.31 | -$0.30 | $0.01 | 3.20% |
And Last week's results:| Company | Ticker | Date | EPS | iEstimate | Surprise | Surprise % | Actual |
| Brown Shoe Co | BWS | 8/27/2012 | $0.03 | $0.04 | $0.01 | 33.33% | $0.16 |
| Ltx-Credence Cp | LTXC | 8/28/2012 | $0.03 | $0.09 | $0.06 | 200.00% | $0.04 |
| Greenway Medicl | GWAY | 8/28/2012 | $0.09 | $0.10 | $0.01 | 11.11% | $0.10 |
| Genesco Inc | GCO | 8/28/2012 | $0.26 | $0.29 | $0.03 | 11.54% | $0.50 |
| Dycom Inds | DY | 8/28/2012 | $0.41 | $0.45 | $0.04 | 9.73% | $0.39 |
| Ciena Corp | CIEN | 8/29/2012 | -$0.02 | $0.00 | $0.02 | 100.00% | -$0.04 |
| Collective Brnd | PSS | 8/29/2012 | $0.22 | $0.25 | $0.03 | 13.64% | N/A |
| Cubic Corp | CUB | 8/31/2012 | $0.75 | $0.79 | $0.04 | 5.33% | N/A |