The Market In 5 Minutes: Friday The 13th

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Macro Focus

Asian equities closed mostly lower as lower commodity prices weighed in on commodity-linked stocks, while poor earnings from several Japanese companies disappointed investors. Oil prices were also lower early Friday morning. The price of brent crude fell 0.73 percent to trade at $47.73 a barrel, while WTI fell 1.22 percent to trade at $46.15.

Shrinking U.S. output and massive cuts to investment in new projects will reduce the global oil glut over the course of this year, OPEC said Friday, potentially pushing worldwide oil production lower than demand in 2017. OPEC forecast that production by countries outside the cartel will help rebalance a global crude market that is seen prices fall by more than half since 2014, even though OPEC has declined to rein in its own production.

Apple AAPL hit a 52-week low on Thursday, falling below $90 and allowing Alphabet GOOG to surpass its market capitalization once again — at least temporarily.

U.S. retail sales rose 1.3 percent in April vs. 0.8 increase expected, the biggest increase in a year.

BZ News Desk

Some of last night's and this morning's notable earnings:

JC Penney JCP Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $(0.32) vs $(0.38) Est., Sales $2.81B vs $2.92B Est.
Concordia Healthcare CXRX Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $1.35 vs $1.52 Est., Sales $228.535M vs $231M Est.
NVIDIA NVDA Reports Q1 EPS $0.46 vs. Est. $0.32, Rev. $1.3B vs. Est. $1.26B
Shake Shack SHAK Reports Q1 EPS $0.08 vs. Est. $0.05, Rev. $54.2M vs. Est. $52M

Long investors in the SPDR S&P Retail ETF XRT have had a tough week to close out the Q1 earnings season. The ETF is down about 5 percent over the week, its lowest level in months. A portion of that weakness has been related to disappointing results out of the department store group.

Sell-Side Themes

Goldman Sachs added Allergan AGN to its Conviction List, while taking Mylan MYL off the list.

Deutsche Bank issued a big report on the restaurant sector following a mixed bag of Q1 results.

Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls

Bank of America downgrades Western Digital WDC to Underperform.
Stifel downgrades Lockheed Martin LMT to Hold.
Bank of America upgrades CyberArk CYBR to Buy.
Seaport Global upgrades Transocean RIG to Neutral.
Citigroup initiated Howard Hughes HHC at Buy.
JPMorgan initiated Arista ANET at Neutral.

Deal Talk

Apple invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-hailing company Didi, one of Uber's biggest rivals.

Anheuser-Busch InBev BUD has entered into an agreement with Ambev pursuant to which AB InBev has agreed to transfer SABMiller's SBMRY Panamanian business to Ambev, in exchange for which Ambev has agreed to transfer to AB InBev its business in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.

Buy-Side

Speaking at the SALT 2016 Conference, Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors said the hedge industry is "under assault."

In The News

The Obama administration will issue guidance on Friday directing public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. A joint letter from the Departments of Education and Justice will go out to schools on Friday with guidelines to ensure that "transgender students enjoy a supportive and nondiscriminatory school environment,"

A group of Bernie Sanders supporters who have worked or volunteered for his campaign have come up with a draft proposal calling for the Vermont senator to suspend his presidential bid after the June 7 California primary, eventually concede to Hillary Clinton and build an independent organization aimed at defeating Donald Trump.

Blogosphere

Hong Kong's property market is supposedly in a freefall: "What I still don't understand is how Kyle Bass plans to short Chinese banks?"

Gadfly's Max Nisen says Valeant VRX is haunted by "ghost of past and future." The stock hit a 52-week low on Thursday.

Trending

JCP JWN NVDA KTOV SHAK UNG AMZN AAPL XRT TIF TGT X KSS CYBR WM [StockTwits]

Friday the 13th... The fear of the number 13 has been given a scientific name: "triskaidekaphobia." The superstition surrounding this day may have arisen in the Middle Ages, "originating from the story of Jesus' last supper and crucifixion" in which there were 13 individuals present in the Upper Room on the 13th of Nisan Maundy Thursday, the night before his death on Good Friday.