MARKET UPDATE
Equities are up again, but we are seeing a somewhat mixed reaction in many names. DJIA futures are flat and S&P futures are up 0.2%. NASDAQ is the real winner with a gain of +0.7%. Treasury prices are indicated slightly higher this Tuesday morning, with the 10-Year yielding 3.37% and the 30-Year yielding 4.19%. Commodities are firm as oil briefly hit $80.00. Currently NYMEX WTI Crude was down $0.20 at $79.47 per barrel and gold is up by +0.1% at $1064.00 per ounce.
ECONOMIC & MACRO EVENTS
These are today’s top economic data:
8:30 AM Housing Starts & Building Permits (Sept)
8:30 AM PPI & Core PPI (Sept)
4:30 PM API Weekly Oil Inventory
Earnings Today: BlackRock (BLK, Caterpillar (CAT), Coca-Cola (KO), Coach (COH), DuPont (DD), Gilead (GILD), Pfizer (PFE), SanDisk (SNDK), Seagate (STX), State Street (STT), UnitedHealth (UNH), United Technologies (UTX), and Yahoo! (YHOO).
ANALYST UPGRADES & DOWNGRADES
Upgrades
Amazon.com (AMZN) Raised to Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Bank of America (BAC) Raised to Outperform at RBC Capital Markets.
Ford Motor Co. (F) Raised to Equal Weight at Barclays.
Under Armour (UA) Started as Outperform at William Blair.
Downgrades
Boston Scientific (BSX) Cut to Market Perform at Wells Fargo.
Spirit Aerosystems (SPR) Cut To Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
BULLISH EVENTS
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) surged to hit $200+ in the after-hours session last night after Apple significantly beat its earnings and revenues estimates and after it raised guidance.
Bank of New York Mellon (BK) reported $0.54 EPS outside of items vs. $0.48 estimates; revenues rose 3.7% year/year to $3.33 billion vs the $3.18 billion consensus. Metrics: TCE of 5.2%, Tier 1 11.3%, Tier 1 Common 9.8%; provision for credit losses was $147 million in compared to $61 million in Q2 due to downgrades in the insurance and media portfolios.
Lexmark (LXK) reported $0.65 EPS vs. $0.45 estimates; revenues fell 15% over last year to $958 million vs. $901.3 million estimates; for Q4 it sees EPS of $0.50 to $0.60 vs. $0.47 consensus.
Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) has announced that it began a two-stage clinical study of its virus-like particle H1N1 influenza vaccine in Mexico. This is in collaboration with Avimex Laboratories and GE Healthcare. Shares are indicated up around 9% in early trading.
DuPont (DD) reported a gain in net income of $409 million vs $367 million a year ago and posted $0.45 EPS (up 12%) and while revenues fell 20% to $6.16 billion. First Call estimates were $0.33 EPS. DuPont also narrowed its 2009 earnings range to a new $1.95 to $2.05 EPS from a prior range of $1.70 to $2.10 EPS. A huge beat, but on cost cutting.
BEARISH EVENTS
Texas Instruments (TXN) traded down marginally despite the company beating its earnings revenue estimates. The $0.40 to $0.50 EPS compares to $0.40 estimates, so it appears that the Ford recall from last week was a less than nominal issue.
United Technologies (UTX) beat earnings at $1.14 EPS vs. $1.12 estimates and said sales were down 11% to $13.4 billion vs $13.3 billion estimates. The company raised guidance for the year, but roughly only by that $0.02 EPS it beat estimates by.
MPS Group (MPS), a staffing, consulting, and business solutions provider, is being acquired by rival Adecco. The $1.3 billion deal is not bearish considering it is a 24% premium valued at $13.80 per share. Its 52-week trading range was $4.16 to $11.51 before this announcement.
Pfizer (PFE) posted $0.51 EPS and a 3% revenue drop to $11.6 billion vs. $0.48 EPS and $11.42 billion estimates. Pfizer has also reported its post-Wyeth guidance now to $49.0 to $50.0 billion in revenues and adjusted diluted EPS of $2.00 to $2.05 EPS. These are above prior guidance and above the $1.98 EPS and $45.3 billion in revenue estimates, but that is because of the Wyeth addition. Analysts are very slow to adjust for for merger earnings, so just treat this as an update. Pfizer is also laying off 1,000 workers this quarter.
Volterra Semiconductor Corporation (VLTR) met its Q3 earnings estimates but it gave a weak outlook for Q4. Considering this one is up 200% from lows, that was not good enough. While no trading indications are in yet, this did fall 10% to $16.50 in the after-hours session last night.
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