9:10am (EST)

Futures are pointing towards a higher open this morning following yesterday’s selloff.  The Dow ended Thursday with a 132 point drop and settled at 10,308 while the S&P 500 fell 13 and finished at 1,096.

Today is a quadruple witching day which means contracts for stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single stock futures all expire today.  It is what is known as “Quadruple Witching” day on Wall Street and it can be extreme volatility depending on the current market environment.

We mentioned yesterday that we expected the market to power higher today but given the lack of volatility over the past couple of months, we don’t believe we that will be the case today.

We had a number of companies report earnings after the bell last night and Wall Street seems to like what they heard.  Research In Motion (RIMM, $63.46, down $1.21) is over $70 in pre-market trading after reporting strong earnings that beat analysts’ expectations.  The company reported earnings of $1.10 a share versus estimates of $1.04.  Revenue came in at $3.92 billion which was ahead of the $3.78 billion the Street was calling for.   

Oracle (ORCL, $22.88, down $0.24) also came in with better-than-expected results while Palm (PALM, $11.72, up $0.11) however, reported a wider loss than expected as their smart-phone sales declined.  Palm is back below $11 in pre-market trading.

Elsewhere, Celgene (CELG, $50.62, down $1.16) is up 9% in early trading to $55 after a late-stage study show its drug, Revlimid, significantly slowed the progression of sickness in patients following a type of stem cell treatment.

We have much more to talk about this morning in the Members Area so let’s get to it.  As we head to press, the Dow futures are up 22 points.

]]>