Day Traders Diary

5/14/15

U.S. equity futures trade near their pre-market highs amid upbeat action overseas. The S&P 500 futures hover 12 points above fair value with the entire advance coming after the start of the European session.

Meanwhile, Treasuries have recovered the bulk of yesterday's losses with the 10-yr yield down two basis points at 2.26%.

Weekly Initial Claims (Briefing.com consensus 275K) and April PPI (consensus 0.2%) will be released at 8:30 ET.

In U.S. corporate news of note:

Cisco Systems (CSCO 29.07, -0.28): -1.0% after reporting a one-cent beat and issuing in-line guidance. The stock was downgraded to 'Neutral' at Sterne Agee CRT following earnings. 

J.C. Penney (JCP 8.66, -0.05): -0.6% despite beating bottom-line estimates and raising its comparable store sales guidance. 

Kohl's (KSS 68.01, -6.50): -8.7% after below-consensus revenue and comparable store sales overshadowed a bottom-line beat. 

Shake Shack (SHAK 74.45, +6.09): +8.9% in reaction to better than expected earnings and revenue. 

Vipshop Holdings (VIPS 27.54, +0.88): +3.1% after beating earnings and revenue estimates.

Reviewing overnight developments:

Asian markets ended mixed. Japan's Nikkei -1.0%, China's Shanghai Composite +0.1%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng +0.1% 

In economic data: 

Japan's Machine Tool Orders +10.4% year-over-year (prior +14.9%), M2 Money Stock +3.6% year-over-year (expected +3.6%; prior +3.6%), Foreign Investments in Japanese Stocks JPY 72.7 bln (prior JPY 821.0 bln), and Foreign Bond Buying JPY 492.6 bln (prior JPY 185.3 bln) 

India's April WPI Inflation -2.65% year-over-year (expected -2.30%; prior -2.33%) 

South Korea's May M2 Money Supply +9.0% year-over-year (prior +8.6%) 

New Zealand's Q1 Retail Sales +2.7% quarter-over-quarter (expected +1.5%; prior +1.9%) and April Business NZ PMI 51.8 (prior 54.5)

In news: 

The People's Bank of China refrained from conducting open market operations for the eight consecutive session on Thursday.

Major European indices trade with modest gains. Germany's DAX +0.6%, France's CAC +0.5%, and UK's FTSE +0.1%. Elsewhere, Italy's MIB +0.7% and Spain's IBEX +0.5% 

Investors did not receive any economic data this morning 

Among news of note: 

Activity across Europe has been subdued with many participants staying away from the markets for Ascension Day