Style Outperformer:
Sector Outperformers:
- 1) Steel +2.5% 2) Oil Service +2.4% 3) Disk Drives +2.3%
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
- PPS, ACIA, MOMO, REN, PRAH, TWTR, VIPS, TIME, YRD, GPRO, TWLO, AVXS, SCSS, AERI, SSP, ALRM and JCP
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
- 1) LMT 2) TJX 3) TWLO 4) SWHC 5) CORN
Stocks With Most Positive News Mentions:
- 1) PPS 2) CHK 3) TIME 4) SORL 5) TASR
Charts:
Today's Headlines
Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal:
Fox News:
- Milwaukee officials plead for calm after police shooting sparks violence. (video) Wisconsin
Gov. Scott Walker activated the National Guard on Sunday afternoon,
hours after a gas station was set on fire and other businesses were
torched by demonstrators protesting a controversial shooting by police.
Walker said he took the step after receiving a request from Milwaukee
County Sheriff David Clarke and talking with Mayor Tom Barrett and the
Guard's leader. The Guard will be in position to help "upon request,"
according to Walker's announcement. Walker also praised citizens who
showed up Sunday to clean up the north-side neighborhood where the
violence took place. He called for "continued peace and prayer." The
clashes and rioting erupted after a Milwaukee police officer shot and
killed an armed suspect Saturday night during a foot chase on the city’s
north side.
- Pence urges federal probe into whether Clinton granted political favors to foundation donors. (video) Republican
vice-presidential nominee Gov. Mike Pence on Sunday suggested a federal
investigation into whether Hillary Clinton, during her tenure as
secretary of state, provided political favors to foreign donors to her
family’s Clinton Foundation, saying “the American people have a right to
know.” The Indiana governor argued that emails made public last
week suggested such a connection between State Department officials and
major foreign donors to the foundation but acknowledged that Clinton’s
involvement remains unclear.
- Congress could get record of FBI's Clinton interview over emails by this week. (video) Some
of the FBI files on the agency’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s
use of a private server system while secretary of state could be given
to a House oversight committee as early as this week, a congressional
source confirmed with Fox News on Sunday.
Night Trading
- Asian indices are -.25% to unch. on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 115.0 +.25 basis point.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 43.75 +.5 basis point.
- Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 73.37 -.05%.
- S&P 500 futures +.08%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.05%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
Economic Releases
8:30 am EST
- Empire Manufacturing for August is estimated to rise to 2.0 versus .55 in July.
10:00 am EST
- The NAHB Housing Market Index for August is estimated to rise to 60 versus 59 in July.
4:00 pm EST
- Net Long-Term TIC Flows for June.
Upcoming Splits
Other Potential Market Movers
- The Reserve Bank of Australia minutes could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are slightly lower, weighed down by industrial and technology shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the week.
BOTTOM LINE: I expect US stocks to finish the week mixed as yen strength, global growth worries and profit-taking offset investor performance angst, short covering and central bank hopes. My intermediate-term trading indicators are giving neutral signals and the Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the week.
Bloomberg:
- S&P 500 Resists Bearish Tug to Post Sixth Advance in Seven Weeks. The
steady march higher for U.S. stocks may have slowed to a crawl, but the
S&P 500 Index’s sixth advance in seven weeks still managed to
defy a chorus of bears warning valuations have become too rich. The
benchmark for American equity edged higher by 1.2 points to 2,184.05,
two points shy of a record. Energy shares paced gains as crude
notched its best week since April, while results from the largest
department stores bolstered confidence in the retailing industry. Mixed
economic data lowered the odds of an interest-rate hike this year,
sending bank shares lower. The rally in U.S. stocks amid a fifth
consecutive quarter of declining earnings has inflated valuations to
levels last seen in the dot-com era, a warning for some. For bulls,
fresh evidence of the American economy’s steady expansion at a pace that
isn’t forcing the Federal Reserve to tighten can keep pushing equity
prices higher.
- World Powers Call for Calm as Putin Bolsters Crimea Defense. World
powers urged Russia and Ukraine to refrain from ratcheting up a
confrontation over Crimea as President Vladimir Putin bolstered the
disputed peninsula’s military with some of his army’s most advanced
air-defense missile systems.
The European Union said there was no independent confirmation of claims
that Ukrainian agents had killed two Russian servicemen in Crimea.
Putin pledged a “very serious” response as he blamed Kiev for pursuing
“terror” activities. The 28-member bloc called on both sides to
refrain from intensifying what has led to the worst diplomatic standoff
between the two countries since a 2015 truce eased hostilities in
Ukraine’s separatist conflict. Germany said that Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier will meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei
Lavrov, next week in Russia.
- High-Risk ‘Shadow’ Credit in China Put at $2.9 Trillion by IMF. International
Monetary Fund staff said that 19 trillion yuan ($2.9 trillion) of
Chinese “shadow” credit products are high-risk compared with corporate
loans and highlighted the danger that defaults could lead to liquidity
shocks. The investment products are structured by the likes of trust and
securities companies and based on equities or on debt -- typically
loans -- that isn’t traded, staff members John Caparusso and Kai Yan
said in a report released Friday. The commentary highlighted the
potential for risks bigger to the nation’s financial stability than from
companies’ loan defaults. While loan losses can be realized gradually,
defaults on the shadow products could trigger risk aversion that’s
harder to manage, the report said.
- Fear of Military Rule Grows in Benghazi as Elected Mayor Ousted. The
army in eastern Libyan replaced the mayor of the North African
country’s second-biggest city with a senior intelligence chief, a move
criticized by activists as illegal and a prelude to military rule in the
region. Colonel Ahmed Laraibi was named mayor of Benghazi on
Thursday, the Albayda-based news agency LANA reported. The appointment
was made without consulting local legislators, while Benghazi’s
municipal council was also suspended, LANA said.
- A Number of Companies Are Warning About High Consumer Uncertainty. A lot of uncertainty.
Consumer balance sheets have strengthened since the financial crisis,
but their confidence is still lagging far, far behind. There are a
number of things for U.S. consumers to worry about, even if personal
finances are fairly strong. An upcoming election in the U.S. and unrest
overseas has started to show up in economic data measuring consumer
sentiment, which hasn't seen much of an uptick over the past two years
despite the stock market's march higher.
Barron's:
- Had bullish commentary on (MON), (TJX), (SSP), (BKD), (GE) and (DE).
- Had bearish commentary on (IBM).
Zero Hedge:
- Is Trump Deliberately Throwing The Election To Clinton?
- Most-Hated Rally? Options Traders Have Never, Ever, Been More Bullish Stocks.
- Obama's Operation Choke Point Is "Unbridled Abuse Of Executive Power, Completely Outside The Rule Of Law".
- 2 Men, 3 Women, & 6-Year-Old Kid Burned, Stabbed By 27-Year-Old Attacker On Swiss Train.
- German President Booed, Attacked; Claims "The People Are The Problem, Not The Elites".
- A Stunning Admission From Deutsche Bank Why A Shock Is Needed To Collapse The Market, And Force A Real Panic.
- Insanity, Oddities, And Dark Clouds In Credit-Land.
- Merkel Urges German CEOs To Hire Refugees.
- Farmland Bubble Bursts As Ag Credit Conditions Crumble.
- North American Life Insurers "Accidentally" Pile Up Massive Distressed Debt Holdings.
- FBI Mutiny? Feds Said To Launch Clinton Foundation Corruption Probe Despite DoJ Objections.
- Connect Just Two Dots, See All The Rest.
- David Tepper Catches Bearish Billionaire Bug: Cuts Long Exposure By A Third; Liquidates All SPY, QQQ Calls.
- Review Of Q2 Earnings Calls Reveals Cautious Consumer, Margin Contraction And Brexit Fears.
- Fed's Bullard: "We Don't See Recession Risk Likely In Near Term".... Just Like In August 2008.
- CNN Admits "We Couldn't Help [Hillary] Any More Than We Have". (video)
- Weekend Reading: Willful Blindness.
- Stocks Extend Winning Streak To Longest In 4 Years Despite Deluge Of Dismal Data. (graph)
