1:00pm (EST)
Futures were weak throughout the night following a collapse in the Greece debt talks and got progressively worse as the European markets opened for trading. The weak open overseas translated into a lower start here at home as the bears try to stop the bulls recent momentum.
The European Union rejected Greece’s bondholders swap for a 4% interest rate on newer bonds in exchange for the current tab which puts the country at risk for a default, again. We have seen this circus before and Greece is only part of the problem as Portugal and Italy are next in-line.
Despite the worries, the market has bounced off its lows after holding short-term support which was prior resistance.
In earnings news, Coach (COH, $68.65, up $4.41) is trading higher after beating Wall Street’s estimates by 3 cents a share. It was the fifth-straight quarter Coach has beat estimates on average by 3 cents and we were looking for an earnings miss.
We talked about the company’s impressive numbers yesterday for 2011 and how they had come in ahead of the suit-and-ties for the last 4 quarters but we were convinced they would come up short, or lower guidance, and we were wrong.
The other earnings trade we wanted to take was EMC (EMC, $24.81, up $1.37) but we didn’t like yesterday’s action in the market and decided to stay on the sidelines. We have looked at the stock as a covered call trade and yesterday we peaked at the February 25 calls (EMC120218C00025000, $0.46, up $0.23), which are up 100%, but didn’t like the idea of having 2 all-or-nothing trades.
We are 13-1 for closed trades for 2012 and we have locked in half profits on a number of other trades so we haven’t taken any new trades this week. We see a number of new option trades we like, but if we learned anything in 2010 and the first half of 2011, it is choppy markets are hard to trade and its best sometimes to wait until we get a clearer picture.
We said Sunday night in our Weekly Wrap that Greece could weigh on the market all week and how the talking heads and pros were saying this was a done deal by Monday. No agreement has been reached, yet, and here it is Tuesday.
The Fed will also take center stage on Wednesday as it prepares to release the latest minutes along with the Rate Decision during Wall Street’s lunch break. There has been talk of more easing, or starting up the money printing press again, but with tax refunds starting to come out, we think the Fed stands pat. Tomorrow will also be a big day for Housing numbers.
The big news after the bell will be Apple (AAPL, $424.12, down $3.29) which will be reporting their quarterly results. The bulls have done of a great job of brushing-off Europe’s woes once again but this week is packed with earnings as 25% of the S&P companies will be confessing. This will be the most important one.
It’s still possible the bulls can push the July and April highs on an Apple beat-and-raise but we are in a win-win situation, either way, as we have continued to play the ride up while locking in profits along the way. At some point we are expecting a pullback but our Hard Stops will lock in our profits. We also have longer dated call options that should be okay, but, if the market does take a dip we will be ready to play the pullback.
As we head to press, the Dow is down 45 points to 12,663 after kissing a low of 12,613 while the S&P 500 is lower by 4 points to 1,312 after kissing 1,306. The Nasdaq is trying to rally the troops as it is showing a gain of 2 points to 2,786.
Our Aflac (AFL, $48.40, up $0.35) call option trade has just hit a 100% return so today hasn’t been too bad despite the Coach snafu. Dendreon (DNDN, $14.11, up $0.90) is on the move again and we are just watching the action. Subscribers, check the Members Area for the updates.