1:00pm (EST)
A lot of market pundits were calling for a nasty session before the market opened as futures looked weak after the ADP report. We went over the numbers this morning and the debate is ongoing as to what clues this holds for Friday’s non-farm payrolls number for March. The market, however, will be closed Friday in observance of Good Friday, so the reaction won’t hit until Monday.
This is what makes trading a little more difficult because of the unknown. Do we get a good report and have a huge surge on Monday or is it the exact opposite? Or do we come in flat and the market continues its slow methodical crawl higher?
In other economic news, a disappointing Chicago PMI reading for March after the open gave the bears more ammo. The figure came in at 58.8, but the pencil pushers had called for 61 after a reading of 62.6 in February. This pushed the market to its lowest levels for the day.
However, the bulls got some good news after the Commerce Department report that factory orders rose 0.6% last month versus expectations for an increase of 0.5%.
As a result, the Dow is currently down 15 points to 10,892 while the S&P 500 is flat but fractionally higher at 1,172. The Nasdaq is up a couple of points to 2,408.
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Wall Street is also expecting some “window dressing” today which simply means fund managers might be selling stocks to lock in gains at the end of the quarter while looking for new ones to make their portfolios look better. We don’t think this event will have much impact because the smart fund managers are holding on to their winners for even further gains.
Turning to stocks, Research In Motion (RIMM, $74.67, down $0.25) will report earnings after the bell and we are sure shares will be active in after-hours trading. Analysts expect the company earn $1.27 per share on revenue of $4.3 billion.
[caption id="attachment_4929" align="aligncenter" width="448" caption="RIMM Hourly Chart"]
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The company has given a forecast of $1.23-$1.31 and revenue of $4.2-$4.3 billion. It will be an interesting report because it comes out on the heels of all of the Apple (AAPL, $235.63, down $0.21) good news.
Guidance will be key for RIMM and we think the company will have to smash earnings for shares to get a significant pop.
We will be back in the morning but we want to get inside our Members Area as we have a lot to cover.
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