The Market In 5 Minutes: Party Like It's 1999

Below is a tool used by the Benzinga News Desk each trading day -- it's a look at everything happening in the market, in five minutes. Apply for daily AM access by clicking here or email minutes@benzinga.com.

Macro Focus

U.S. stock futures traded slightly higher in early pre-market trade. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 6 points to 18,572.00, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures gained 0.50 points to 2,182.50. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index rose 1 point to 4,801.00.

The Dow, S&P and Nasdaq exchanges all closed at record highs Thursday, the first time they did that together since December 31, 1999.

Oil prices traded lower as Brent crude futures declined 0.33 percent to trade at $45.89 per barrel, while US WTI crude futures also fell 0.14 percent to trade at $44.17 a barrel.

USA Retail Sales (MoM) for Jul 0.00% vs 0.40% consensus estimate.
USA PPI (MoM) for Jul -0.40% vs 0.10% consensus estimate.
Data on business inventories for June will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET.
The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index for August is schedule for release at 10:00 a.m. ET.
The Baker Hughes North American rig count report for the recent week will be released at 1:00 p.m. ET.

BZ News Desk Focus

JC Penney JCP Reports Q2 Adj. EPS $(0.05) vs $(0.15) Est., Sales $2.92B vs $2.93B Est.; Affirms FY Outlook
Nordstrom JWN Reports Q2 EPS $0.67 vs $0.56 Est., Sales $3.592B vs $3.68B Est.
Ruby Tuesday RT Reports Q4 Adj. EPS $0.10 vs. Est. $0.11, Rev. $279.3M vs. Est. $285M
UniPixel UNXL Reports Q2 EPS $(0.16) vs $(0.13) Est., Sales $1M vs $970K Est.
Planet Fitness PLNT Reports Q2 EPS $0.11 Up 56% YoY, Revenues $91.5M Up 15.9% YoY
Concordia CXRX Reports Q2 GAAP EPS $(11.18), Adj. EPS $1.38 vs $1.39 Est., Sales $231.712M vs $231.3M Est.

Sell-Side Themes

Susquehanna initiated coverage on a bunch of sports apparel names.

Alibaba BABA received a couple of upgrades following its earnings beat.

Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls

Morgan Stanley downgraded SunPower SPWR to Equal-Weight.

Brean downgraded Pernix PTX to Hold.

Raymond James upgraded Blackberry BBRY to Outperform.

B. Riley upgraded Foot Locker FL to Buy.

Stifel started coverage on Mallinckrodt MNK at Buy.

Deal Talk

Honeywell HON reached an agreement to sell Honeywell Technology Solutions to KBR for $300 million.

CVR CVI is said to be planning to make an offer to acquire Delek DK, according to sources as reported by the NY Post. Carl Icahn owns a controlling stake in CVR and it thought to be building a stake in Delek, the sources said.

An earlier rumor mentioned Icahn taking a large stake in Wynn Resorts WYNN, but a source familiar with the matter told Benzinga Icahn has no interest in buying a Vegas casino.

In The News

Hillary Clinton held a speech at the Futuramic Plant in Warren, Michigan, on Thursday. However, some workers of the tool and engineering company weren't very excited at the prospect of the Democratic nominee winning the upcoming election.

Apple Music AAPL has managed to secure exclusive debut/first-week rights for three albums that ended up opening at the first spot in the Billboard 200 albums ranking.

Education

The Pair Trade: When intending to bet one security will outperform another, investors often will enter into a pair trade to take advantage of the differences in performance. A pair trade is constructed when someone buys one security and shorts another with the intent to profit off of the spread between the future price performance of both securities.

Trending

NVDA JCP M ACIA CXRX JWN NAT MG INVN INO SGI TSS PAM RDUS HD VIPS

Michael Phelps made yet more history Thursday at the Rio Games after winning his 22nd Olympic gold medal.

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