BETWEEN THE HEDGES

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Stocks Surging into Final Hour on Central Bank Hopes, Less European Debt Angst, Yen Weakness, Financial/Transport Sector Strength

Posted by Gary .....at 3:09 PM

Broad Equity Market Tone:

Advance/Decline Line: Higher

Sector Performance: Most Sectors Rising

Volume: Slightly Below Average

Market Leading Stocks: Outperforming

Equity Investor Angst:

Volatility(VIX) 16.53 -12.31%

Euro/Yen Carry Return Index 140.52 -1.79%

Emerging Markets Currency Volatility(VXY) 10.58 -2.76%

S&P 500 Implied Correlation 63.17 -3.08%

ISE Sentiment Index 210.0 +176.32%

Total Put/Call .93 -13.08%

NYSE Arms .97 +52.75%

Credit Investor Angst:

North American Investment Grade CDS Index 67.96 -2.80%
America Energy Sector High-Yield CDS Index 737.0 -.26%

European Financial Sector CDS Index 59.98 -3.85%

Western Europe Sovereign Debt CDS Index 24.87 -4.24%
Asia Pacific Sovereign Debt CDS Index 70.08 -1.93%

Emerging Market CDS Index 394.29 -.60%

China Blended Corporate Spread Index n/a
2-Year Swap Spread 24.75 +.5 basis point

TED Spread 23.75 +.25 basis point

3-Month EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap -12.5 +2.25 basis points

Economic Gauges:

3-Month T-Bill Yield .02% unch.

Yield Curve 138.0 +2.0 basis points

China Import Iron Ore Spot $66.79/Metric Tonne -1.5%

Citi US Economic Surprise Index 4.0 -1.5 points
Citi Eurozone Economic Surprise Index -3.6 -.2 point

Citi Emerging Markets Economic Surprise Index -12.10 +.1 point

10-Year TIPS Spread 1.64 +3.0 basis points

Overseas Futures:

Nikkei Futures: Indicating +276 open in Japan

DAX Futures: Indicating +81 open in Germany

Portfolio:

Higher: On gains in my medical/retail/tech sector longs

Disclosed Trades: Covered some of my (IWM)/(QQQ) hedges

Market Exposure: Moved to 75% Net Long

Today's Headlines

Posted by Gary .....at 2:37 PM

Bloomberg:

Draghi Commits to Trillion-Euro QE in Deflation Fight. (video) Mario Draghi led the European Central Bank into a new era, pledging to buy government bonds in an asset-purchase program worth at least 1.1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) to counter the threat of a deflationary spiral. The ECB president unveiled a quantitative-easing plan of 60 billion euros per month until at least the end of September 2016 in a once-and-for-all push to put more cash into circulation and revive inflation. The region’s 19 national central banks were handed responsibility for 80 percent of the additional purchases and put on the hook for their own losses, a move intended to assuage critics.
German Officials at ECB Led Opposition to Draghi’s QE. The two German members of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council led opposition to the expanded asset-purchase program that President Mario Draghi announced today, according to euro-area central-bank officials. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and Executive Board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger were against implementing the plan now, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations were private. Klaas Knot of the Netherlands, Ewald Nowotny of Austria and Estonia’s Ardo Hansson also expressed reservations against starting the program at this time, the people said. An ECB spokesman declined to comment.
Merkel Cool on ECB Plan as Germans Reject ‘Sweet Poison’. Chancellor Angela Merkel left her allies in Germany to voice outrage over the European Central Bank’s bond-buying program and instead issued an indirect warning over its potential risks. “The world is amply supplied with liquidity right now,” and governments should seize the moment to reduce debt, Merkel said at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. “This liquidity supply is such that you can’t really precisely see who is competitive or who isn’t quite there yet.” Merkel’s comments highlighting the risk of undermining economic reforms were her most detailed critique of the $1.3 trillion asset-buying plan.
Ukrainian Deaths Surge as Merkel Sharpens Rhetoric on Russia. German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed Russia for undermining neighboring Ukraine’s sovereignty and cited “many setbacks” in peace efforts as the death toll in the conflict jumped. As Ukraine’s army suffered its worst casualties in two weeks, an attack Thursday in Donetsk killed eight civilians and the government accused its pro-Russian adversaries of ignoring a diplomatic push to withdraw heavy weaponry. Merkel said Russia’s annexation of Crimea can’t be allowed to pass and sanctions should remain. NATO said violence is at pre-truce levels.
Latin American Default Wave Just Getting Started: Credit Markets. Latin America is turning into the world leader in corporate-bond defaults. Four companies in the region have skipped dollar-denominated debt payments this month, the most of any other area and almost half the total in all of 2014. In a sign bond investors are increasingly concerned about Latin American companies’ ability to repay debt, borrowers led by Mexico’s oil-rig operators have pushed the amount of the region’s bonds trading at distressed prices to $58 billion, about a third of all emerging-market debt trading at such levels. The strains that have investors from Prudential Financial Inc. to Hartford Investment Management Co. bracing for more defaults are showing few signs of abating. An oil-led collapse in commodities prices has persisted, growth is flagging in economies from Mexico to Colombia, and the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s history is spreading. That raises the risk of even bigger losses for investors saddled with the worst returns in emerging-markets this year. “The defaults will come in Latin America,” Jennifer Gorgoll, who helps manage $4.1 billion of emerging-market debt at Neuberger Berman Group LLC, said by telephone from Atlanta. “Some of these are slow-moving train wrecks. You have to be able to determine which companies are survivors and which are not.”
China Provinces Cut 2015 Growth Targets as ‘New Normal’ Spreads. China’s regions are setting lower economic growth targets as policy makers adjust to the “new normal” of a slower expansion pace for the world’s second-largest economy. Of seven provinces, municipalities and regions that have so far published 2015 growth targets, six have cut the rates. Economists expect the central government will lower its national target to about 7 percent from last year’s 7.5 percent at the People’s Congress in March.
Euro Falls to 11-Year Low as ECB Expands Bond-Buying. The euro fell 2.1 percent to $1.1371 at 1:35 p.m. in New York and touched $1.1363, the weakest level since September 2003. The last time the euro and dollar traded one for one was in 2002. The shared currency declined 1.8 percent to 134.44 yen and touched 134.29, lowest since Oct. 16. The dollar added 0.2 percent to 118.25 yen.
Europe Stocks Post Biggest Six-Day Gain Since 2011 After Draghi. European stocks rose, posting the biggest six-day gain since December 2011, as ECB President Mario Draghi announced a plan to buy government bonds. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index climbed 1.7 percent to 364.05 at the close of trading, the highest level since December 2007. The gauge extended gains after Draghi’s announcement and later briefly erased them.
Oil Slips as U.S. Crude Stockpiles Surge Most in 14 Years. Oil fell after a government report showed that U.S. crude supplies surged the most in almost 14 years. Inventories rose 10.1 million barrels in the week ended Jan. 16, the biggest gain since March 2001, according to the Energy Information Administration. Refineries operated at 85.5 percent of their capacity, the lowest level since April 2013 as units were idled for maintenance. “The 10 million-barrel plus increase was a big surprise,” Gene McGillian, a senior analyst at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut, said by phone. “The big drop in refinery runs left nowhere for the crude to go but storage. This suggests that we’ll see more big supply builds in the future with production at such high levels.” West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery slipped 85 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $46.93 a barrel at 12.55 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The volume of all futures traded was 35 percent above the 100-day average for the time of day.
Oil Drillers ‘Going to Die’ in 2Q on Crude Price Swoon. Oil drillers will begin collapsing under the weight of lower crude prices during the second quarter and energy explorers who employ them will shortly follow, according to Conway Mackenzie Inc., the largest U.S. restructuring firm. Companies that drill wells and manage fields on behalf of oil producers will be the first to fall after the benchmark American crude, West Texas Intermediate, lost 55 percent of its value in seven months, said John T. Young, whose firm led the city of Detroit through its 2013 bankruptcy.
Copper Falls on China Demand Concern, ECB Stimulus. Copper declined for the first time in three days as the European Central Bank announced more stimulus and investors speculated demand is slowing from China. A private manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index due Friday is forecast to show factory activity contracted for a second month in China, the world’s biggest metals consumer. Copper for delivery in three months fell 1.5 percent to $5,685 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange by 1:59 p.m. in London. The metal has declined 9.8 percent so far this month. Futures for March delivery slipped 1.4 percent to $2.575 a pound on the Comex in New York.
Iron Ore Declines to 2009-Low as Steel Mills Seen Cutting Output. Iron ore declined to the lowest level in more than five years amid speculation that mills in China will reduce steel output in the runup to a holiday next month, curbing demand from the biggest user and worsening a glut. Ore with 62 percent content delivered to Qingdao, China, dropped 1.5 percent to $66.79 a dry metric ton, the lowest level since June 2, 2009, according to Metal Bulletin Ltd. Prices are headed for a third consecutive weekly loss.
IGC Raises Corn Outlook, Sees Grains Stockpiles at 30-Year High. World corn output will beat a November forecast, the International Grains Council said, lifting the estimate an eighth time on improved prospects for South America. Bigger corn and wheat crops will expand world grain output excluding rice to a record and lift inventories at the end of the season to the highest in about 30 years, the London-based organization wrote in a report today. Corn futures have dropped 9.7 percent in Chicago in the past 12 months as U.S. growers harvested a record crop and the outlook for production in Brazil and Argentina improved, while wheat futures have dropped 4.4 percent. Cheaper grain has contributed to a drop in international food prices.
Lagarde Sees Fed Starting Rate Increases in Mid-Year. International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the Federal Reserve will probably begin raising interest rates within months in a sign that the economy is on the mend. “Our expectation is that it’s more likely to happen mid-year than at the end of the year,” Lagarde said on a Bloomberg Television panel hosted by Francine Lacqua at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “The fact that the Fed is going to do that is good news in itself. It shows that things are moving in the right direction.”
Lazard’s Gary Parr Sees ‘Darwinian’ Pressure on Banks to Shrink. Banks will be forced to cut back the number of businesses in which they operate in the next three years as new regulations make the universal model untenable, according to Gary Parr, vice chairman of Lazard Ltd. (LAZ) “In 18 to 36 months, there will be a much more intense pressure on some number of banks to break up,” Parr said in an interview with Tom Keene on Bloomberg TV at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday. “It’s a Darwinian exercise, and what’s fascinating to me is how slowly it’s going. It seems obvious with regulators increasing the capital requirements, with the burden of regulation, with the charges particularly for systemically important institutions.”

MarketWatch.com:

Why the ECB’s QE won’t delay Fed rate increases.

CNBC:

This currency war cannot go well: Art Cashin. (video)

ZeroHedge:

Business Insider:

There Are 3 Men Who Truly Run New York — One Is In FBI Custody.
Ukraine Just Lost A Crucial Airport To Russia-Backed Rebels, And The Photos Are Staggering.
Yemen's Government Just Resigned En Masse.
Here Are The Owners Of European Sovereign Debt. In Italy and Spain, domestic banks hold a significant share of their government debt.
The 'Yemen Model' Is Finished.
These Are The Weapons That Russia Is Pouring Into Eastern Ukraine. (pics)
GM(GM) Is Spending $300 Million On Robots To Build Cadillacs.
Expert: Obama's Foreign Policy Argument Is All Spin And No Substance.
Not Even New Jersey Thinks Chris Christie Would Be A Good President.

Reuters:

Oil majors seek to claw back costs from service firms. Global oil majors say they are demanding cheaper but better services from engineering and service companies, or simply taking work back in-house, after losing hundreds of billions on cost overruns in the last five years.

Telegraph:

Cheap central bank cash won't save the euro. The economic impact of QE is likely to be limited.
Larry Summers warns of epochal deflationary crisis if Fed tightens too soon. Former US treasury secretary also says eurozone QE has come too late to lift the region off the reefs on its own.

Boersen-Zeitung:

ECB's Impact Limited, Goldman's Pill Says. ECB's QE decision won't have 'dramatic' effect, Goldman's chief European economist, Huw Pill, says in interview. Bond yields, currency rate indicate that there's already some easing in place. Bond purchases less effective tool in Europe as lending is mainly done by banks, less by capital markets.

Bear Radar

Posted by Gary .....at 1:11 PM

Style Underperformer:

Large-Cap Value +.48%

Sector Underperformers:

1) Coal -1.51% 2) Networking -1.42% 3) Oil Service -.94%

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:

RY, FFIV, LE, DFS, DLB, MHG, XLNX, SNDK, TCBI, BMRN, EVEP, AXP, FCS, URI, PBYI, BPFH, ASPX, BMA, ADVS, BGG, MDVN, NVGS, AZPN, FBC, SWN and CAVM

Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:

1) FFIV 2) LL 3) UTX 4) HON 5) AXP

Stocks With Most Negative News Mentions:

1) EMR 2) FLS 3) SNDK 4) XLNX 5) DNR

Charts:

ETFs Falling on Unusual Volume

Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume

Bull Radar

Posted by Gary .....at 11:23 AM

Style Outperformer:

Small-Cap Value +.95%

Sector Outperformers:

1) Airlines +2.95% 2) Road & Rail +2.51% 3) Banks +2.21%

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:

CYN, EBAY, KEY, BBRY, LUV, JNS, JBLU, LOCO, WBS, FRC and UAL

Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:

1) MCP 2) FXCM 3) STX 4) FFIV 5) TWX

Stocks With Most Positive News Mentions:

1) AGU 2) IHS 3) EBAY 4) SODA 5) CCI

Charts:

ETFs Rising on Unusual Volume

Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Thursday Watch

Posted by Gary .....at 10:09 PM

Evening Headlines
Bloomberg:

Revenge of Disaffected Europe Risks New Crisis Sparked in Greece. They speak different languages, they come from different backgrounds, yet all have the same message of frustration that’s threatening to redraw the European political map over the next year. Starting with elections this Sunday in Greece and heading west to Ireland via Britain and Spain, polls show Europeans will vent their anger over issues from widening income disparities and record unemployment to unprecedented immigration. For Athens pensioner Irini Smyrni, the moment she’d had enough was when her younger daughter lost her job with the government last year. For Dublin florist Nicola Johns, it was when her business fell behind on rent.

Greek Election Battle in Final Days With Syriza Maintaining Lead. The election battle between Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and opposition leader Alexis Tsipras moved into its final stretch, with Tsipras’s anti-bailout Syriza party maintaining its lead before voting day on Jan. 25.

Draghi Is Pushing Boundaries of Euro Region with QE Program. Mario Draghi is about to bring Europe’s integration project across the Rubicon. At about 2:30 p.m. in Frankfurt, the European Central Bank president will probably commit to a quantitative-easing program that may exceed 1 trillion euros ($1.2 trillion). While the move comes much later than that of the Federal Reserve, which ended its own QE three months ago, the ECB’s arrival at this point still marks a critical juncture in the history of the currency and the European unity it embodies.

Emerging Markets, Currencies Look Ripe to Short Sell: Bloomberg Poll. Emerging-market stocks and currencies are luring global investors for all the wrong reasons right now. A quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll showed there was a two-fold surge in the number of respondents who identified developing-nation equities and currencies as the assets they’d most like to bet against. For currencies, the percentage jumped to 12 percent from 6 percent in November while for stocks, it rose to 7 percent from 3 percent.

Brazil Keeps Pace of Rate Increases by Boosting to 12.25%. Brazilian policy makers raised borrowing costs for a third straight meeting as analysts forecast they will miss the country’s inflation target. The central bank’s board, led by bank President Alexandre Tombini, boosted the benchmark rate to 12.25 percent from 11.75 percent, as forecast by 56 of 60 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The vote was unanimous and took into consideration “the macroeconomic scenario and the inflation outlook,” according to the central bank statement. Four analysts had forecast a quarter-point increase.

Japan Margin Traders Record Yen Shorts Facing Swiss, Oil Shocks. (graph) Margin traders in Japan raised bets the yen would fall against the dollar to a record amid their currency’s best start to a year since 2010. Wagers from individuals for the Japanese currency to decline outnumbered bets it would gain by 522,856 contracts on Jan. 15, the biggest net shorts since Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc.’s Click 365 began collecting the data in 2006. The figure more than doubled since Sept. 30 as the Bank of Japan’s unexpected Oct. 31 decision to expand bond purchases, known as quantitative easing, drove the yen to an 8 1/2-year low in 2014.

Asian Stocks Fall Before European Central Bank Stimulus Decision. Asian stocks fell even amid speculation the European Central Bank will boost stimulus through a sovereign-bond purchase program under the quantitative-easing strategy. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index (MXAP) lost 0.1 percent to 134.46 as of 9:05 a.m. in Tokyo before markets open in China and Hong Kong.

Oil Drops as Iraq Signals Production Boost to Offset Price Slide. Oil fell as Iraq said it needs to boost crude production and exports to compensate for lower prices, signaling the global supply glut that spurred the market’s collapse may persist. Futures dropped as much as 1.2 percent in New York. Iraq has lost about 50 percent of its revenue because of the price decline, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nuri Shaways said in Davos, Switzerland. Crude stockpiles in the U.S., the world’s biggest oil consumer, probably expanded for a second week, a Bloomberg News survey shows before government data on Thursday.

Bankruptcy Forecaster Sees Junk-Debt Bubble Bursting Next Year. A bubble in the leveraged-finance market is growing and may burst in 12 to 18 months, said Edward Altman, a specialist in credit markets who developed a model for predicting corporate bankruptcies. “We think it’s building,” Altman told a gathering of corporate restructuring experts Wednesday in New York. He said the current “benign credit cycle” encouraged by low interest rates has been going on for five years and led to a “frothy” market. “You’ll be busier at this time next year.” A financial crisis isn’t necessarily expected, since few economists are also predicting a U.S. economic recession, Altman told the Turnaround Management Association, a group of consultants, lawyers, liquidators and other professionals who advise distressed companies. Altman is the director of research in credit and debt markets at New York University’s Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions. He developed the “Z-Score,” a method of predicting a company’s likelihood of bankruptcy.

AmEx(AXP) to Cut More Than 4,000 Jobs This Year After Unit Sale. American Express Co. will cut several thousand jobs this year across the company as part of a restructuring, according a person familiar with the decision. AmEx, the biggest U.S. credit-card issuer by purchases, will take a $313 million pretax charge in the fourth quarter to “improve operating efficiencies,” the New York-based company said Wednesday in a statement as it reported results for the period. The person, who asked not to be identified because the reductions weren’t publicly disclosed, declined to elaborate.

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Steel to Idle Plants and Lay Off 545 More Workers. Company to Idle Units in Illinois and Indiana; Cites Low-Cost Imports, Restructuring.

State of the Union Drew Lowest TV Audience in 15 Years. President Barack Obama‘s 2015 State of the Union address drew the lowest television viewership for any such speech in the last 15 years, according to new data from Nielsen.

Google(GOOG) to Sell Wireless Service in Deals With Sprint, T-Mobile. Move Likely to Push Rivals to Cut Prices, Improve Speeds.

Falling Oil Prices Worry Regional-Bank Investors. Questions About Loans to Energy Firms Dominate Conversation During Earnings Blitz.

Obama’s American Sniper. Seeing “American Sniper” made the State of the Union speech pretty unbearable.

The World’s Monetary Dead End. The European Central Bank embraces quantitative easing despite the sorry track record of ‘helicopter money.’ Central banks in the U.S., Japan and Europe are trapped in a loop. They are fully invested in the theory that zero rates and bond buying are stimulative and add to inflation, yet growth, inflation and median incomes keep going down.

Now He’s After Middle-Class Savers. Mr. Obama prepares to wipe out popular vehicles for funding education. President Obama is pitching his new tax plan as a way to help the middle class at the expense of the rich. But middle-class savers are bound to notice if he achieves two of the White House’s stated goals—to “roll back” tax benefits of 529 college savings plans and “repeal tax incentives going forward” for Coverdell Education Savings Accounts.

Fox News:

Police are using new radar that can track you inside your home. (video)

Zero Hedge:

Japan Bought The Most Foreign Stocks Since Records Began Last Week. (graph)

The Only Road Out Of Davos.

Total Announced Job Cuts In 2015 Just Topped 32,000. (graph)

The Most Economically-Correlated Commodity Is Flashing Red. (graph)

Panmure: Draghi's QE Will Fail, 2015 Will Be The Year Of "The Great Unwinding". (graph)

Market Tensions Mount: Canada, Crude, Copper, Small-Caps, & Credit. (graph)

12 Signs That The Economy Is Really Starting To Bleed Oil Patch Jobs.

Kaisa Default Contagion: China's $245bn Corporate Bond Market "Is Too Complacent". (graph)

Greece - By The Numbers.

NY Times:

U.S. Not Expected to Fault Officer in Ferguson Case. Justice Department lawyers will recommend that no civil rights charges be brought against the police officer who fatally shot an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., after an F.B.I. investigation found no evidence to support charges, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Reuters:

New York says Barclays not cooperating in 'dark pool' probe. New York's top law enforcer on Wednesday accused Barclays Plc of defying his subpoenas in a probe of high-speed trading in its private "dark pool," and moved to expand his lawsuit accusing the British bank of fraud.

JPMorgan(JPM) CEO Dimon's pay package rose above $20 mln in 2014.

SanDisk(SNDK) warns of weak first half of 2015, hurt by lean inventory. Memory chipmaker SanDisk Corp forecast current-quarter and full-year 2015 revenue well below Wall Street expectations, saying it would be unable to meet demand for flash memory storage chips until mid-year due to lean inventory levels.

U.S.-based stock funds attract first weekly inflows since Nov -ICI.

Fear of deflation as Chinese hold back on gadgets, getaways. Lennon Yu may be Beijing's worst nightmare: the 24-year-old is willing to wait for car prices to fall before buying. This mindset, if it becomes widespread, could threaten to trap China's cooling economy in a deflationary rut.

F5 Networks(FFIV) revenue misses estimates as big deals slow down. Network equipment maker F5 Networks Inc reported revenue that missed Wall Street's estimates for the first time in eight quarters due to "a marked decrease in the number of deals greater than $1 million". The company also forecast current-quarter revenue and profit below market estimates, sending its shares down nearly 16 percent to $106 in extended trading.

Telegraph:

European economic storm is casting dark clouds over Davos. Slow growth and low inflation seem to have become the established condition, at least for advanced Western economies.

EU has squandered last chance to make euro workable, warns Ex-Bundesbank chief. Axel Weber says it is "hard to say" whether Europe would be in better shape today if the euro had never been launched, a tactful evasion understood as nostalgia for the stability of the D-Mark.

Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko tells Russia: we will never bow down. Ukraine's president tells Russian policymakers: you are not for peace, you are for war.

Evening Recommendations

None of note

Night Trading

Asian equity indices are unch. to +.50% on average.

Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 113.0 -8.0 basis points.

Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 71.5 -3.25 basis points.

S&P 500 futures +.13%.

NASDAQ 100 futures +.10%.

Morning Preview Links

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate

(LUV)/.55

(TRV)/2.54

(CY)/.14

(ALK)/.93

(BBT)/.73

(KEY)/.26

(PCP)/3.08

(JCI)/.77

(VZ)/.72

(UNP)/1.52

(COF)/1.75

(ETFC)/.25

(ISRG)/4.37

(KLAC)/.51

(ALTR)/.35

(MXIM)/.29

(FII)/.38

(SBUX)/.80

(JBHT)/.88

Economic Releases
8:30 am EST

Initial Jobless Claims are estimated to fall to 300K versus 316K the prior week.

Continuing Claims are estimated to fall to 2400K versus 2424K prior.

9:00 am EST

The FHFA House Price Index for November is estimated to rise +.3% versus a +.6% gain in October.

11:00 am EST

The Kansas City Fed Manufacturing Activity Index for January is estimated at 8.0 versus 8.0 in December.

Bloomberg consensus estimates call for a weekly EIA crude oil inventory build of +2,670,000 barrels versus a +5,389,000 barrel gain the prior week. Gasoline supplies are estimated to rise by +1,350,000 barrels versus a +3,171,000 barrel gain the prior week. Distillate inventories are estimated to rise by +780,000 barrels versus a +2,925,000 barrel gain the prior week. Finally, Refinery Utilization is expected to fall by -.83% versus a -2.9% decline the prior week.

Upcoming Splits

None of note

Other Potential Market Movers

The ECB rate decision, Draghi press conference, weekly Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, Bloomberg Economic Expectations Index for January, eco10weekly EIA natural gas inventory report and the (PGH) investor day could also impact trading today.

BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by industrial and commodity shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing modestly lower. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the day.

Stocks Rising into Final Hour on Central Bank Hopes, Commodity Bounce, Short-Covering, Healthcare/Energy Sector Strength

Posted by Gary .....at 3:23 PM