Earnings Battles Continue

This is the second week of heavy reports in Earnings Season. Twelve Dow stocks are reporting this week, so I will show a Dow chart again this morning.

Here is a tally of some pre-market earnings movers so far:

Bullish: WYE up 4.75% (this one may be a little hard to chase now), HAL up 2.75% (this will help Energy a little)

Bearish: PFE down 4%, CAT down 9%, MCD down 2.25%, AXP down 0.60%, ETN down 6%, FCX down 3.5%, KMB down 3.35%,

Pre-market futures are actually up slightly (basically flat), which holds with my theme that if the Bulls can get the glass to be just 30% full then they will at least hold up the market and hope for another 10% - 20%. The earnings reports are running about 30% positive, which appears to be (once again) enough for the Bulls to at least hold up the market.

Here is a chart of the Dow:
(click on image to enlarge)

There are enough negative earnings reports that the market may stay range-bound for another day, but that may still be enough for the Energy and Agriculture/Chemical stocks to continue their upswing. As long as traders don't implode the market today, there will probably be a couple of sectors and a number of individual stocks that try to push up a little. The Dow still has to move above 8,250 intra-day in order to confirm the swing-up, but a close above 8,175 today would also be a positive indication for the swing-up. The Bulls really want a bottom badly (both short-term and long-term). They may believe/hope that they have the ammo to manufacture the short-term bottom, but as always, we shall see.....

8:30 am MT: Intra-day Update: The market is pushing up and substantially raising the probability of a confirmed bounce off the recent range-bound consolidation. As expected, Energy and Agriculture/Chemical stocks are leading the way. So the watchlist I gave you has held true. In addition, you can toss DHR on the list of bullish movers. The company reported earnings this morning and the stock is bouncing.

6:00 pm MT: Market Wrap: Considering that CAT, PFE, and AXP (reported after the close, but was down on the day) absolutely imploded on the Dow today, the market actually held up relatively well. Energy and Commodity stocks still want to make a push, although some Energy stock traders are getting caught up in the Contango "crisis", which is really pretty much a non-issue to me. There's not much to say, other than another day of negative earnings has passed without the market completely blowing up. In fact, the Bulls still want to make a push. If only they can get that glass to 50% full.....

Here is a chart of the SPX:
(click on image to enlarge)

Both the SPX and the Dow pushed and got pushed back. The Dow hit that magical, mystical 8,250 again today.....and then back into the range.....The SPX closed above it's 5dma, which may indicate a swing shift. A move back up above 840 would get the juices going in my speculator brain, although a true confirmation would come on a close above 850. And of course on the Dow, it's all about 8,250, which I have been highlighting for the past week.

This all comes down to earnings day to day, so that's the way I'm playing it, day to day. The after-hours looks a little bullish as traders will focus on the TXN earnings, which were positive. TXN is up about 5% after-hours. There are still way too many companies to report tomorrow morning to get the feel for the day, so we wait and watch. One thing to note is that Steel will be on the move one way or the other with STLD (tonight), and AKS, NUE, and X all reporting in the morning. In addition, there are several other big name companies to report tomorrow morning like DD, BMY, DAL, EMC, HSY, LXK, BTU, VLO, and VZ.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.....