Kinda felt like a lazy Spring Training game in Florida took itself to Wall Street today. Nothing except da' boys playing catch today, back and forth till a half hearted swoon end of day. Even the Bears couldn't be to thrilled by this triple digit loss on the lightest volume of the week, hey even in the middle innings today the Bulls almost turfed some green on them. Must be pretty disappointing after fielding this line up card today....
Batting 1st: A pullback was in the cards after 4 straight days made the market indices extended 2nd- GDP below consensus 3rd- Initial claims higher 4th- Benny talking of small bank failures 5th- Moody's headlines on regional banks 6th- Financials beaten all day(XLF -3.4%) 7th- Oil breaking out from its recent consolidation 7th -Commodities booming after a day off 8th- US dollar at all time lows. 9th-, not sure what 9 was, but if you're going to rely on the 9th place hitter to hit one out of the park, you're in trouble!...You'd figure the Bulls had their doped up "Ace" on the mound to fend of this potent line up, but there really wasn't one!. Don't tell us it was that Texas Ranger, George W. Bush claiming 'there will be no recession'.. talk about knuckle balls being thrown out by a knuckle head!
Anyways, it was a quiet premarket and as it turned out tossing out a few balls to hit before the open was the way to play out the game today. So, instead of dwelling on today's overall market sentiment and what the last of the month might hold, we'll introduce or as re-introduce a few of the home runs today.
EOG, this O & G play just smelled of PBR that we traded here as soon as the news was released before their investor conference. They announced 4 new plays with meaningful potential and also increased their Barnett gas play potential. Poor Citigroup just downgraded it this week. Basically, the Barnett play was this stocks growth at 5.0-7.2 tcfe's after today's increase. To put it in perspective, these 4 new plays carry mid potential of 8.5. We don't need to know what tcfe's are all about, just that these finds are a greater # and the stock already traded over $100 based on mainly Barnett. We're sure this will be around here as long as oil is gushing over $100.
HURC, guess most members that have been with us recall this play creeping in almost every Q after earnings the past few years. After a few Q's off it reported a stellar Q today with what looked like record revenues and EPS. Even though this was helped by way of dollar exchange, it still managed to hold its big gap and actually make another move late in the day. It was a bit surprising as EPS stocks are just not running so far in this environment. Having experienced this stock more than once, we'd wait for it to come back before considering further.
GTLS, (LNG) was a big play here last summer and its good to see it still is on radar of DJIM's bullpen. (sorry Mark..couldn't resist). As we said this morning, it's not really about the EPS as the reason to chase, but possibly the combo of a decent report and the sector its in. A CC is worth waiting for or at least trading into if you see a good reaction and then getting out as the call begins before evaluating if you should re-enter or just enter for the first time after the call. Besides, it is really hard to get a grip on earnings this Q and what will react in a positive manner. You could see a blowout headline a la DECK this evening, yet by missing a detail in the actual report you could be in big trouble chasing at the crack of the bat. It's really a crap shoot with earnings, a lot of things need to come together to get a reaction like HURC's/ GTLS today. Just like HURC, lets keep them around and watch for them to come off these extended 1st day reactions. We're not in a market where you want to hold on too long yet. So, if you made it into these plays today, it is best to pocket gains and be glad you had it on watch before most. If they are really this good, we'll get around to them again.
Friday might come down to whoever has the biggest paint brush to close off the monthly on the charts. As of yesterdays close (27th), the DJIA was up 1.7%, SPX up 1.3% and the NASD was down -0.2% for the month. After today, it looks more of a wash of a month. Amazing, all things considered we've had to put up with.