9:15am (EST)
European markets are bleeding red and the big talk is China’s Shanghai stock market which has fallen 5% on concerns about the Chinese economy. The Dow Jones futures are off by 89, to 9,118. The S&P 500 futures are down 10, to 979, while the Nasdaq futures are lower by 18, to 1,569. We are eaasily looking at a triple-digit loss at the open for the Dow.
Wall Street gets nervous when it sees big dips on the Shanghai market as they begin to think out load that there is something fundamentally bad happening with the Chinese economy. No matter how you slice it, the U.S. and China are joined at the hip so we need to watch this development.
In pre-market trading, I am seeing bids for Bank of America (BAC) at $16.63, $26.65 for Home Depot (HD) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) is at $30.49…sweet!











Futures Up, Hasbro Beats Street
Monday, February 8th, 2010
9:10am (EST)
Futures are trading slightly higher this morning as the market looks to end a four-week losing streak. There is no economic news out today so the market will try to rally off earnings and enthusiasm. In fact, it is a relatively quiet week in terms of economic reports except the weekly unemployment report which is due out Thursday.
Hasbro (HAS, $33.30, up $2.50) is up 9% in pre-market trading after reporting a profit of $166 million, or $1.09 a share, versus of $94 million, or $0.62 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Wall Street has pegged the company to earn 81 cents a share.
The fourth quarter is big for toy makers since it contains the holiday period and can make up to half of the quarter’s sales. Hasbro said revenue climbed to $1.38 billion from $1.23 billion, topping Wall Street’s estimate of $1.34 billion.
Home Depot (HD, $27.98) got an upgrade to ”Overweight” from “Equal Weight” from Morgan Stanley (MS, $27.26) as they believe Home Depot’s realignment has positioned them well to benefit from a housing recovery. Morgan gave the stock a $35 price target.
As we head to press, Dow futures are up 18 to 9,959 while the S&P 500 futures are higher by 3 to 1,063. The Nasdaq 100 futures are off by a point and are at 1,746.
Tags: HAS, Hasbro, hd, Home Depot, Morgan Stanley, MS, option picks, option signals, options alerts, stock options trading
Posted in Earnings, Market Analysis, Market Commentary | Comments Off