Have a nice long weekend everyone..See comments below..
Below is our entire commentary prior to the open today:
April 12, 2001 (Watchlist Below)
Oil and Gas Inventories continue to move above 300 million barrels and gasoline inventories also moved up a bit. If this trend continues it should bring prices down. Apparently the OPEC cuts of April 1st have not affected inventory levels yet. Gasoline inventories are still worth keeping track of, as there may be other factors at work which could bring them down.
Import and Export prices both fell during March, but since imports fell more than exports, the trade balance benefited.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) for March is released at 8:30 AM ET. Economists expect an index of 0.1% and a core rate of 0.1% as well. Both would be excellent numbers. Since both National Association of Purchasing Manager reports showed a drop in the prices paid component, it would not be too surprising to see a negative PPI.
Retail Sales for March is released at 8:30 AM ET. Economist expect no change, but another fall in sales may prod the Federal Reserve into a sooner rate cut, while an increase may have them dig their heels in. Chain store sales for March will also be released.
Weekly Jobless Claims is released at 8:30 AM ET. Claims have been in a steady rise (383 thousand last week), the 4-week moving average stands at 378 thousand. Claims above 400 thousand would cause a chill among economists who presently believe we are not in a recession.
The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey for April is expected at 10:00 AM ET. A sharp drop will get the Federal Reserves attention.
There was plenty of news after the close Wednesday. Warnings included LZ, NTAP and SCNT (now a penny stock). For the most part companies beat earnings expectations in the reports after the close including; CWTR, MERQ, RBAK, RIMM and VNWK. And despite guiding lower, most of the stocks traded up in the after hours market.
Today is a bigger day for earnings reports, ABT, AEIS, AVX, BCC, FDC, GE, IDXX, SBAC and WLL are scheduled to report before the open. BGEN, BBSW, DCLK, ELON, ELNT, DNA, HAND, JNPR, MIPS, NATI, NMTC, PWAV, RMBS and SSTI are expected to report after the close. Next week will be a busy earnings week.
The market internals were back to being mixed as it digested the gains from Tuesday. The screened stock ratio however, back down to 6 to 3 favoring selling. The interesting thing that showed up in the numbers was even though there was more advancing volume than declining volume, the screened stock ratio indicates that the up volume was moving into stocks that have been in a down trend, in other words bounces that may or may not hold.
One important sign of a market strength is the reaction to bad news. And, the last couple days have seen stocks moving up on bad news. Today looks to be much the same as yesterday, as we have earnings momentum on the open, but remember we have already had 3 up days in the NASDAQ.
Because the volume was concentrated in bounces and the majority of stocks that did screen were in the lower end of their daily range by the close, it made for thin pickings today. Note that have a position in HSIC.
Below is the watchlist for April 12, 2001. The alert price is approximately 1/4 above the previous days high. This alerts us to the potential movement of the stock. For more information see the Strategies link. Double click on the symbol to view a current graph.
Good Trading!!
Sam
savvy-trader.com |
