14 Mar 2013 AMC

14 Mar 2013

Market Summary 

 The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a revised not-to-exceed amount of $3,543,500,000 contract modification (FA8505-12-C-0001, P00004) for country standard time compliance technical order development, integration and testing fabrication of trial kits to support validation and verification activities, procurement of 68 F-15S to SA conversion kits and the procurement and installation of four base stand-up kits.  This modification is a decrease of $456,160,000 for a revised not-to-exceed of $3,543,500,000 for the F-15 S/SA conversion and provisioning program.  The location of the performance is St. Louis, Mo.  Work is expected to be completed by Dec. 19, 2019.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2012 through fiscal 2013.  The contracting activity is AFLCMC/WWKA, Robins Air Force Base, Ga.  Contract involves foreign military sales. 

 Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., Rolling Meadows, Ill., is being awarded a $173,643,542 firm-fixed-price, cost-reimbursable-no-fee, time and material contract (FA8523-13-D-0002) for sustainment of the LITENING Targeting Pod System.  The location of performance is Rolling Meadows, Ill.  Work is expected to be completed by Dec. 31, 2017.  Type of appropriation is fiscal 2013.  The contracting activity is AFLCMC/WNKCA, Robins Air Force Base, Ga.  

The Boeing Co., Seattle, Wash., is being awarded a $128,393,761 modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-award-fee contract (N00019-04-C-3146) for engineering labor to perform extended lifetime fatigue testing, teardown, and post-teardown analysis of the P-8A airframe under the P-8A System Development and Demonstration Program.  The engineering tasks and analyses are necessary to authorize P-8A operations for up to 150 percent of the specified service life of the airframe, dependent upon the results of the extended lifetime testing.  Work will be performed in Seattle, Wash. (95 percent), and St. Louis, Mo. (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in December 2018.  Fiscal 2013 Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation, Navy contract funds in the amount of $128,393,761 are being obligated on this award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.  The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River Md., is the contracting activity.

Market Internals

Leaders and Laggards

Technical Updates

Briefing's Commentaries 

Stock Market Update 16:25 ET Dow +83.86 at 14539.14, Nasdaq +13.81 at 3258.93, S&P +8.71 at 1563.23 :[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ended today's session with modest gains. The S&P 500 advanced 0.6%, and settled within two points of a record close. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average registered its 10th consecutive gain.  After the previous three sessions adhered to the script of early weakness resulting in steady dip buying, today's trade began on the opposite note. The S&P 500 jumped out of the gate and remained in the black for the duration of the day.  While today's start was opposite of that observed in recent days, the result was not. The benchmark index notched session highs shortly before the close, and settled near that level.  The gains were paced by two cyclical sectors. Energy and technology were the top two performers at the start, and they ended in the lead as well.  The energy sector saw broad strength and the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF (XLE 80.02, +1.08) advanced 1.4% to end at its best level since July 2011. The space outperformed notably even as crude oil registered lesser gains. The energy component ended higher by 0.6%, at $93.08 per barrel.  The technology sector was the other driver of today's action. Major sector components contributed to the outperformance as Apple (AAPL 432.50, +4.15) and International Business Machines (IBM 215.80, +3.74) ended with respective gains of 1.0% and 1.8%.  In addition, chipmakers, which comprise a significant portion of the tech sector, traded ahead of the broader market. The PHLX Semiconductor Index settled higher by 0.5%.  Although growth-oriented sectors ended in the lead, this was not the case with consumer discretionary shares. The group underperformed due to the relative weakness ofAmazon.com (AMZN 265.74, -9.36). The online retailer fell 3.4% after JPMorgan Chase downgraded the stock to ‘Neutral' from ‘Overweight.'  Outside of Amazon.com, remaining discretionary stocks traded in-line with the broader market. Other retailers were unaffected by the stock-specific downgrade and the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT 70.64, +0.45) rose 0.6%.  Today's trade saw all ten S&P 500 sectors end with gains as health care and utilities rounded out the bottom of the rankings.  Health care lagged amid weakness in drug makers after the Food and Drug Administration announced an investigation into several drugs linked to previously-unknown potential side effects. The SPDR Health Care Select Sector ETF (XLV 45.02, +0.04) settled higher by 0.1%.  Trading volume was below average once again as 677 million shares changed hands on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Thus far, the average of this week's volume has tracked almost 14% below the 50-day average volume.  With the S&P 500 inching towards record highs, the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX 11.29, -0.54) fell to multi-year lows. Including today's decline, the short-term volatility measure has sunk back to levels last seen in March 2007.  Reviewing today's economic news, weekly initial claims declined 10,000 to 332,000. This was received as a positive sign of life from the labor market after initial claims spent much of last year confined to a range between 350,000-400,000. Today's report marked the third consecutive week which saw a figure outside of that range.  Producer prices rose 0.7% in February. That was up from a 0.2% gain in January and was the strongest monthly increase since rising 1.0% in September 2012. The Briefing.com consensus expected the PPI to increase 0.6%.  Excluding food and energy, core PPI prices rose 0.2% for a second consecutive month. That was exactly what the consensus expected. A large part of the increase in core prices was the result of a strong gain in pharmaceutical preparations.  The current account deficit for the fourth quarter totaled $110.4 billion, which was narrower than the $112.3 billion deficit that had been broadly anticipated.  In tomorrow's economic data, February CPI, core CPI, and the March Empire Manufacturing Index will all be reported at 8:30 ET. Net long-term TIC flows will be announced at 9:00 ET with February industrial production and capacity utilization set for a 9:15 ET release. Lastly, preliminary March Michigan Sentiment will be reported at 9:55 ET. ..NYSE Adv/Dec 2006/986. ..NASDAQ Adv/Dec 1639/802.

After Hours

18:29 ET MCP +0.5%, GLDD -32.0%, ULTA -14.3%, COSI -12.8% following earnings/guidance :

The major averages ended today's session with modest gains. The S&P 500 advanced 0.6%, and settled within two points of a record close. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average registered its 10th consecutive gain.

Other notable after hours movers on earnings: MCP +0.5%, EDG +0.1%, GLDD -32.0%, ULTA -14.3%, COSI -12.8%, STEC -11.1%, LPR -10.3%, ARO -7.3%, CPE -7.0%, KKD -5.5%, ZUMZ -0.9%, BTH -0.1%

Today after the close the following companies reported earnings: ARO, ANAC, ALC, BTH, BCEI, CPE, CKEC, COSI, EDG, FXEN, GLDD, KKD, MCP, OMPI, STEC, STRA, ULTA, EGY, ZUMZ

Futures are after lower hours: S&P 500 futures are -2.54  from fair value of 1557.64 and Nasdaq100 futures are -3.27 from fair value of 2802.27.

Tomorrow morning before the open five economic reports are scheduled to be released: 1) CPI (Consensus 0.5%) and Core CPI (Consensus 0.2%), 2) Empire Manufacturing (Consensus 6.5), 3) Net 

Long-Term TIC Flows, 4) Industrial Production (Consensus 0.4%), and 5) Capacity Utilization (Consensus 79.4%).

Tomorrow before the open the following companies are scheduled to report earnings: BWS, DXLG, CTRN, FSS, HIBB, PGNX, SNMX, ZGNX

Commodities

Treasuries

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Jason's Commentaries


That certainly came out from nowhere. Dow and S&P500 broke another high again. 670million shares traded in the NYSE, with the bulls outpacing the bears on the internals. Taking a closer look to the main components causing this breakout. Heavy weight components on the Dow like IBM, Chevron made a gain of more than 1.3%, causing the Dow to spike much higher. The Energy Sector was the main leader last night. Most Energy stocks ended up with a gain of 1% last night. The rest of sectors performed fairly well with an average of around 0.6% gain for most sectors. That's the thing I hate about such trending market, you've no idea how high it will go, the only thing is to leverage on the bullish sentiment for now. 

Boeing and Northrop Grunman both receive huge contacts from the Defense last night, and the Industrials has been performing very well. I suppose that piece of news is going to move the market tonight. On top of that, we have the Consumer Sentiment report and the CPI report coming out. I guess that it's not going to move the market as much. 

Market Call: UP

Date: 15 Mar 2013