US futures are marginally lower, much as was the case yesterday. Many world markets are closed today in recognition of May Day, and since this is such a big holiday in Europe the US markets are exempt from bad EU news today. Today's economic news includes the ISM Index (Consensus 53), Construction Spending (Consensus 0.5%), Auto Sales (Consensus 5.4M) and Truck Sales (Consensus 5.7M).
Looking at Asian markets we see markets are mixed:
All Ordinaries - up 0.67%
Shanghai Composite - CLOSED
Nikkei 225 - down 1.78%
NZSE 50 - up 0.60%
Seoul Composite - CLOSED
In Europe markets are all closed except the FTSE:
CAC 40 - CLOSED
DAX - CLOSED
FTSE 100 - up 0.23%
OSE - CLOSED
Technology
Apple (AAPL) weighed on the techs yesterday, keeping those indices and ETFs lower yesterday. The stock once again finds itself below $600/share, having fallen $19.02 (3.15%) to $583.98 yesterday. We have long said as goes Apple so goes the market, and with a beta of 1 there is a lot of truth to this. One needs to figure out however whether this is the tail wagging the dog or the dog wagging the tail, but what we will say is that even with the action in Apple yesterday and the techs ending lower yesterday we did see more highs than lows across the board. That was most interesting as we were reading our market stats this morning.
Sirius XM (SIRI) has earnings out today, and many expect the company to beat due to their entry into the used car market and new programs for recruiting new customers. What we can say is that shares are above the level we think is important for them, the $2.20/share level. With the way all things tech have been beating earnings, this is probably a good speculation for a trade as the company should have good news to report in regards to moving the business forward in addition to the earnings.
Sprint (S) surprised everyone with earnings, and yesterday we saw a continuation of investors rotating into the shares. We think that the company may be poised to roll out an agreement which will take a lot of the iPhone data traffic off of their networks in the major US metropolitan areas, joining Ma Bell in this endeavor. That will be necessary in order to match any gains competitors get by doing this and to simply alleviate any network overloads caused by their rollout of the iPhone. This is our guess, but with one of their network choices now basically in bankruptcy, it appears this may be necessary.
Biotechnology
Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA) saw volume surge to 21 million yesterday as the shares fell $0.185 (7.06%) to close at $2.435/share. The shares are highly volatile and shall remain so as the company guides its weight loss drug through the FDA minefield towards approval. There have been a few articles out which discuss the possibility that the drug is not approved for health concerns, and this is what has been weighing on the shares lately.
Consumer
Monster Beverage (MNST) had a crazy day as volume rose some 1570% with shares trading in a range of $64.06-83.96/share, with the high range being a 52-week high. All this excitement was created over a Wall Street Journal report that the company was the target of Coke, which turned out to not be the case at all. After being up sharply on the day, the shares were halted a few times, when it was finally revealed that Coke was not in discussions at this time the shares finished the day down $0.53. This was certainly a roller coaster for investors.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
