Oil futures remain choppy as US stocks look to head for weekly gains at this 6AM hour, with futures rebounding from yesterday’s oil-driven losses. Overnight, Japanese stocks advanced to a new 15 year high with the yens softening against the US$. Greece’s Athex Composite rises over 3% after Prime Minister Tsipras agreed to speed up economic reform plans
ON THE ECONOMIC CALENDAR:
- 10AM: The Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
- 10:20AM: The Fed’s Lockhart speech on “US Economy and Monetary Policy”
- time not supplied: US drilling rig-count from Baker Hughes
NEWS:
- AMZN: Amazon granted approval by the FAA to test a drone delivery system
- BIIB: Major Event: presents very positive interim results from phase 1B study of investigational Alzheimer’s drug
- AAPL: GOOG: MSFT: BBRY: SNE: global smartphone shipments to rise 16.4% in 2015, reports Digitimes Research
- TKMR: secondary priced at $20.25
- JKS: DD:JinkoSolar and DuPont sign partnership in strategic collaboration agreement
- AMGN, NVS: court rejects Amgen’s bid to block Neupogen biosimilar
- ICPT: announces positive NASH trial results
- AAPL: Morgan Stanley out positive on Apple on upcoming TV service
EARNINGS:
- KBH: EPS of $0.08 beats by $0.06.Revenue of $580.1M (+28.7% Y/Y) beats by $105.2M:Q1 land sale revenues $53M:Net orders of 2,189 up 24%; dollar value of $753.2M up 25%.watch 14.95 resistance
- TIF: Q4 EPS of $1.47 misses by $0.04.Revenue of $1.28B (-1.5% Y/Y) misses by $30M : Inventory +1.53% to $2.36B: Operating margin declined 400 basis points to 23.7% (note: TIF has broken 83.21 support pre-market, watch $82.75 for strong support)
- alert: watch UA on NKE earnings from last night
ANALYST RATINGS CHANGE:
AAPL: reiterates $150 pt: Buy: Stifel: sees Apple moving into electric car field
PIR: upgrade; perform to outperform: Oppenheimer: $20
BIIB: pt raised from $435 to $500: Barclays
BIIB: pt raised from $421 to $500: Piper Jaffray
HON: added to Goldman’s conviction buy list: 4120
NKE; pt raised from $102 to $110: Deutsche Bank
NKE: pt raised from $99 to $106: Credit Suisse (NOTE:watch: strong resistance at 99.75)
NKE: pt raised from $110 to $120: Citigroup
YOKU: pt cut from $24 to $20: Brean Capital
CTRP: pt raised from $64 to $70: Brean Capital
EXAM: Deutsche Bank out positive on ExamWorks
CELG: pt raised from $135 to $144: Piper Jaffray
CBS: pt raised from $60 to $72: Citigroup
KERX: pt cut from $22 to $18: Opco