The Market In 5 Minutes: Wal-Mart, Cisco Disappoint Investors

Macro Focus

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 12 points to 18,845.00, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures gained 2.25 points to 2,175.25. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index gained 14.75 points to 4,797.25.

Oil prices traded higher as Brent crude futures rose 1.44 percent to trade at $47.30 per barrel, while US WTI crude futures also rose 1.32 percent to trade at $46.71 a barrel.

Initial Jobless Claims for Nov 11 235.0K vs 257.0K consensus estimate. Continuing Claims for Nov 4 1.98M vs 2.04M consensus estimate.

USA CPI (YoY) for Oct 2.10% vs 1.60% consensus estimate. CPI (MoM) for Oct 0.10% vs 0.40% consensus estimate.

• New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley is set to speak at the Global Research Forum on International Macroeconomics and Finance at 8:50 a.m. ET.
• New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley will then speak at the "Evolution of Work" event in New York at 9:10 a.m. ET.
• Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is set to testify before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress in Washington D.C. at 10:00 a.m. ET.
• Data on e-commerce sales for the third quarter will be released at 10:00 a.m. ET.
• The Energy Information Administration’s weekly report on natural gas stocks is schedule for release at 10:30 a.m. ET.
• Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard will speak in New York at 12:30 p.m. ET.
• Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans is set to speak in Chicago at 2:45 p.m. ET.
• Data on money supply for the latest week will be released at 4:30 p.m. ET.

BZ News Desk Focus

• Wal-Mart WMT Q3 EPS $0.98 vs $0.96 Est., Revenue $117.2B vs $118.7B Est.
• Best Buy BBY Q3 EPS $0.62 vs $0.47 Est., Revenue $8.95B vs $8.85B Est.
• Cisco CSCO Reports Q1 Adj. EPS $0.61 vs $0.59 Est., ev. $12.4B vs. $12.33B Est.
• First Solar FSLR Updates Guidance FY16 Adj EPS $4.60-$4.80 vs $4.42 Es

Sell-Side Themes

Stephens (Equal-Weight) and Citi (Sell) both downgraded Atwood Oceanics ATW.

Sell-Side's Most Noteworthy Calls

• Investec downgraded Anheuser-Busch BUD to Hold.
• Deutsche Bank downgraded Freeport McMoRan FCX to Hold.
• Goldman Sachs upgraded Microsoft MSFT to Buy.
• Barclays upgraded Teck Resources TCK to Overweight.
• BTIG started Adobe ADBE at Neutral.

Deal Talk

U.S. oil refiner Tesoro TSO said it would buy Western Refining WNR for $4.1 billion to add refineries in Texas, New Mexico and Minnesota. The combined company will have refining capacity of over 1.1 million barrels per day. Tesoro has refineries in California, Washington, Alaska, Utah and North Dakota.

Shares of Rite Aid RAD surged to a high of $7.89 following a DealReporter story that Walgreens WBA is close to reaching a deal to satisfy the US FTC, which would involve divestiture of up to 1,000 stores. Companies interested in the Walgreen's assets are said to include Kroger, Albertsons, CVS Health, Kinney Drugs and Fred's.

Microsoft has offered concessions to EU antitrust regulators over its $26.2 billion, $196 per share offer for LinkedIn LNKD, according to the European Commission. The EU regulator had expressed concerns to Microsoft executives about the deal, which was announced in June.

In The News

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen heads to Capitol Hill today to testify before Congress’s Joint Economic Committee, an opportunity she could use to signal whether the central bank is likely to raise interest rates in December.

The extreme rally in shipping stocks, led by DryShips DRYS, has created plenty of skepticism among traders. In fact, after rallying a mind-boggling 2,840 percent since November 2, DryShips shares were finally halted by the Nasdaq prior to Wednesday’s open. In addition to the market-related causes for the spike, there are at least three underlying fundamental catalysts driving shares higher.

Blogosphere

"If you're not trading stocks and instead hold a diversified portfolio, know ahead of time when you're going to rebalance. Put it on the calendar! Also, decide how far you're willing to let your target allocations drift before you bring it back into balance. I've never met an investor who consistently makes the right choice in the heat of the moment so having these things written down can save you a lot of trouble and money."

Trending

DRYS WMT EGLE CSCO ZIOP BBY VUZI WNR SPLS MNK NTAP AMAT

Guess This Chart

• Wednesday after the bell this company announced a guidance cut and that they'll be cutting about 27% of the workforce, about 1,600 jobs.
• General Electric was rumored to be bidding for this company in August.
• Sympathy plays include SunPower and TrinaSolar.