Friday Watch

Evening Headlines 
Bloomberg:    

• Putin and Kim Jong Un Go a-Courtin’. Partly to rile the U.S., Russia ships aid to the dictatorship. In his more than three years in power, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has purged his government of rivals, forged ahead with the country’s nuclear weapons program, and, if the FBI is right, humbled Sony after it dared to mock him in a movie.

• Greece's Achilles Heel. (video)

• China Financials Flash Warning Seen Before 2008 Mainland Slump. Chinese stock bulls may want to take note of the selloff in financial shares. If recent history is a guide, the losses in the CSI 300 Financials Index -- which total 8.1 percent since the start of the year compared with a 1.7 percent gain in the CSI 300 Index - - are signaling that the world-beating rally in Chinese equities could be about to come to an abrupt, and painful, end. The last time the industry lagged behind the broader market by this much in November 2007 and August 2009, the CSI 300 Index lost an average 42 percent over the following 12 months.   

• IDC Widens Global 2015 PC Shipments Outlook to 4.9% Decline. Worldwide personal-computer shipments will fall further than forecast this year as the strong U.S. dollar and the lack of new products threaten sales, researcher IDC said. Shipments will drop 4.9 percent in 2015 instead of the previous forecast for 3.3 percent decline, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based research firm said in a statement Thursday.

• Asian Futures Extend Gains as Fed Rate-Rise Concerns Ease. Asian stocks rose, paring their worst weekly drop this year, after an unexpected decline in U.S. retail sales bolstered the case for low interest rates. The dollar held its retreat versus some major peers, while U.S. oil traded near a six-week low and gold rallied. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose a second day, adding 0.2 percent by 10:02 a.m. in Tokyo, to trim its weekly decline to 0.9 percent. 

• Oil CEOs Said to Ask Obama Administration to Lift Export Ban. About a dozen U.S. drilling executives, including ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Ryan Lance, were in Washington this week trying to persuade White House officials and lawmakers to lift the 40-year ban on U.S. oil exports, according to two people familiar with the meetings. Chief executives from the lobbying group Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, or PACE, met with White House senior energy policy adviser Brian Deese March 11 to ask the Obama administration to roll back a prohibition on most U.S. oil exports imposed after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, according to two people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions weren’t public.  

• More Coal Cuts Seen Ahead as Demand for Steel Slows: Commodities. In the last year, mining companies eliminated about 15 million tons of production capacity for the coal used to make steel, while outlining plans to double those cuts in the near future. It won’t be near enough.

• It's Back: Your Guide to the $18 Trillion Debt Ceiling. Bigger than U.S. GDP, the debt limit returns with plenty at stake. The cap on U.S. government borrowing kicks back into action Monday after Congress temporarily suspended it last year. The reinstatement means lawmakers in coming months must either lift or re-suspend the ceiling on the nation's debt, which exceeds the size of the economy and which, divided among the world's population, would make every person on the planet $2,500 poorer. 

Wall Street Journal:

• Fed ‘Stress Tests’ Still Pose Puzzle to Banks. Goldman, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley scaled back plans by at least $11 billion. 

• U.S. Steel(X) to Idle Plant, Lay Off 412 More Workers. Idling of Minnesota iron ore operation is company’s latest move to become more nimble.

• Hostage to Hillary. Democrats march in lock-step behind the Clinton machine. 

Fox News:

• Hackers, probing Clinton server, cite security lapses. (video) Stirred by the controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state, a determined band of hackers, IT bloggers, and systems analysts have trained their specialized talents and state-of-the-art software on clintonemail.com, the domain under which Clinton established multiple private email accounts, and uncovered serious lapses in security, according to data shared with Fox News. 

MarketWatch.com: 

• Ulta(ULTA) shares rally after results top Street estimates.

CNBC: 

• Fed 'dramatically' inflated these sectors: Expert. (video) "Dramatically" high valuations in stocks and real estate will come down once the Fed abandons easy monetary policy, a private equity manager said Thursday. 

Zero Hedge:

• Why 1.05 Is Far More Important To The EURUSD Than Parity. (graph)

• Bill Ackman Faces FBI Probe Over Possible Herbalife Stock Manipulation. (graph)

• Germans Furious After Varoufakis/Tsipras Admit "Greece Will Never Repay Its Debts".

• Worst Macro Data Since Lehman Sparks Stock Buying Frenzy. (graph)

• The Final Nail In China's Deflationary Coffin: Wages In The 4 Largest Cities Are Now Dropping.

• 3 Things: Strong Dollar, Oil, Missed Employment. (graph)

• Under The Hood Of A Subprime Lender Accused Of Illegally Repoing Soldiers' Cars.

Business Insider:

• ISIS accepted a pledge of allegiance from Africa's deadliest terror group — and it's a 'real game changer'.

• El Pollo Loco's(LOCO) business is on fire.

• THE DRONES REPORT: Market forecasts, regulatory barriers, top vendors, and leading commercial applications.

• Tim Cook names the next big frontiers for Apple(AAPL): The home, the car, and health.

Reuters:

• Germany's Schaeuble says can't rule out "Grexident". German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Thursday the onus was on Greece to help itself and he could not rule out an accidental exit of the country from the euro zone. "As the responsibility, the possibility to decide what happens only lies with Greece, and because we don't exactly know what those in charge in Greece are doing, we can't rule it out," Schaeuble told Austrian broadcaster ORF when asked about the prospect of a "Grexident".

Financial Times:

• US attacks UK’s ‘constant accommodation’ with China. The Obama administration accused the UK of a “constant accommodation” of China after Britain decided to join a new China-led financial institution that could rival the World Bank.

Evening Recommendations 

• None of note

Night Trading

• Asian equity indices are -.25% to +.75% on average.

• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 105.0 -2.75 basis points.

• Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 65.0 -2.25 basis points.

• S&P 500 futures +.12%.

• NASDAQ 100 futures +.11%.

Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate

• (ANN)/-.03

• (BKE)/1.24

• (CTRN)/.25

• (EBIX)/.39

• (HIBB)/.68

• (RGEN)/.04

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST

• PPI Final Demand for February is estimated to rise +.3% versus a -.8% decline in January.

• PPI Ex Food and Energy for February is estimated to rise +.1% versus a -.1% decline in January.

10:00 am EST

• Preliminary Univ. of Mich. Consumer Confidence for March is estimated to rise to 95.5 versus 95.4 in February.

Upcoming Splits

• None of note

Other Potential Market Movers

• The Japan Industrial Production data could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by technology and industrial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to rally into the afternoon, finishing modestly higher. The Portfolio is 75% net long heading into the day.