Thursday Watch

Night Trading 

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

• Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 90.5 unch. 

• Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 19.5 -.5 basis point.

• Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 73.14 +.1%.

• S&P 500 futures +.29%.

• NASDAQ 100 futures +.33%.

Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate

• (ANF)/-.70

• (BBY)/.40

• (CBK)/-.15

• (DLTR)/1.00

• (GCO)/.30

• (HRL)/.40

• (IGT)/.44

• (MDT)/1.31

• (SAFM)/2.44

• (SHLD)/-.72

• (SIG)/1.66

• (TTC)/1.04

• (TD)/1.24

• (COST)/1.31

• (DECK)/-.06

• (MRVL)/.21

• (ULTA)/1.80

• (COST)/1.31

• (DECK)/-.06

• (GME)/.51

• (ZOES)/.01

Economic Releases 
8:30 am 

• Advance Goods Trade Balance for April is estimated at -$64.5B versus -$64.2B in March.

• Preliminary Wholesale Inventories MoM for April are estimated to rise +.2% versus a +.2% gain in March.

• Initial Jobless Claims for last week are estimated to rise to 238K versus 232K the prior week.

• Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 1925K versus 1898K prior.

11:00 am EST

• The Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Activity report for May is estimated to rise to 10.0 versus 7.0 in April.
  

Upcoming Splits

• None of note

Other Potential Market Movers

• The Fed's Bullard speaking, Fed's Kashkari speaking, $20B 7Y T-Note auction, Japan CPI report, OPEC meeting, weekly Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, weekly EIA natural gas inventory report and the UK GDP report could also impact trading today.

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