#PreMarket Primer: Monday, January 6: Asia Plunges

Record cold temperatures are gripping much of the nation but expect the U.S. markets to return to business as usual this week now that the holiday season is over. Investors will watch Washington as the monthly jobs report hits the market Friday as well as minutes from the Federal Reserve’s most recent meeting.

On top of key economic data, earnings season kicks off this week but expect the real action to pick up next week as earnings reports reach investors en masse.

U.S. index futures are up slightly taking the lead fro Europe and ignoring the plunge in the Asian markets earlier. The Dow is up about 25 points while the S&P is up about two points.

Top Stories

• Apple AAPL confirmed Saturday that it acquired Snappy Labs, the company behind the app, SnappyCam that allows iPhone users to take 20 high quality pictures per second.
• JPMorgan JPM Is nearing a $2 billion settlement with federal regulators stemming from suspicions that the bank didn’t take action when all signs pointed to Bernard Madoff running a Ponzi scheme.

Asian Markets

It wasn’t a good start to the week for Asian markets. The Nikkei plunged more than two percent to end the day at 15908.88 on the back of a strengthening yen. Further, China released data over the weekend that revealed the country’s service sector slowed shapely last month.

The Shanghai composite didn’t fare much better, down 1.8 percent to close at 2045.71 and the Hang Seng, down 0.58 percent to close at 22684.15.

European Markets

Europe is largely quiet Monday morning with indices hovering around the flat line. The FTSE and the CAC are down about 0.1 percent, and the DAX is flat.

Commodities

Energy is showing strength while metals are weak. WTI is up about 0.6 percent at $94.49 per barrel and Brent is up 0.9 percent to $107.84. Natural gas is up about 1.4 percent to $4.36.

Gold is down fractionally to $1,236.70 per ounce, silver is down 0.9 percent to $20.02 per ounce and copper is down 0.6 percent to $3.33.

Currencies

Japan’s plunge was largely blamed on the Yen. The Japanese currency is up 0.3 percent against the dollar. The Euro is down against the dollar currently sitting at 1.36 and the British pound is weak against the dollar at 1.63.

Pre-Market Movers

• Boston Scientific BSX is up about 1.2 percent this morning and General Electric GE is up about 1 percent. Each has traded only a couple of hundred shares.
• Carnival Corp CCL is down about 1.5 percent after hitting a 52-week high last week.

Earnings

• Friday, Lindsay Corporation LNN reported fiscal first-quarter earnings. EPS came in at $0.79 missing expectations by $0.10. Revenue beat expectations. The company reported $147.7 million versus estimates of $142.2 million.
• Schulman SHLM will report fiscal first-quarter earnings. Analysts expect EPS of $0.47 on revenue of $571 million.
• Sonic SONC will also report fiscal first-quarter earnings. Analysts expect EPS of $0.14 on revenue of $127.98 million.

Economics

This week is full of key economic data. Factory orders and ISM Non-Manufacturing numbers come out at 10:00 am. Also on the calendar, a three and six month bill auction.