On Tuesday night, I ate some of the best Hungarian goulash that I’ve ever had. If it is done the right way, it is one of my five favorite meals (even if I do desecrate it by eating low fat meat and a healthy serving of veges on top- don’t worry…just frozen peas and carrots, but hey…gotta get some vegetables in). I rarely eat it; in fact, this was the first time in over three years I’d had it. Little did I realize at the time that a much more unappetizing version of Hungary would present itself merely 2 ½ days later. After awakening to a mildly positive futures outlook around 5AM on Friday morning, things stayed relatively placid until a sudden seemingly random drop around 7AM. Two stories broke. The first was a rumor that SocGen had unaccounted for derivative losses. The second really caught my eye. Namely, credit-default swaps on sovereign bonds in many European nation surged early Friday morning after a spokesperson for Hungary’s prime minister (Viktor Orban) noted that the nation is in a “very grave situation. He went on to say that talk of a default in Hungary is “not an exaggeration” because a previous administration had “manipulated” figures. Now, Hungary is a relatively small European entity (in fact, it’s GDP would rank it around 25th among the 50 U.S. States). But investors took every negative connotation possible out of those comments. I mean, really. What would happen to a company if a spokesperson for a CFO noted that the previous CEO and CFO had committed massive fraud? Well, this is an entire sovereign nation! This sparked swaps on government debt of Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and Greece to rise anywhere around 10% on average. The new worry became not only is the situation worsening, nobody knows in fact if there has been a masking of how bad it is elsewhere. A whole new wrinkle. Thus, it’s not so much the crumbling of the 50th largest economy on the planet that has people worried, but moreso of “who is next” and will bets begin to be stacked on much bigger nations suffering the same fate now rather than later? The euro crumbled to below 1.20 on Friday as a result and set off another round of hedge fund selling of equities. A very poor jobs report (more on that in another blog post at a later date) did not help matters as doubt for a recovery began to be sown a bit more aggressively state-side as well. As the week starts, we need to keep our eyes on Budapest, Madrid, and Lisbon rather than Tokyo, New York, and London for definitive clues of where the crisis lies as soaring credit default swaps don’t bode well for any European nation.
Markets in Asia were hit very hard overnight with Tokyo down 3.8% and Hong Kong off 2%. This led to the euro trading below 1.19 and Dow futures off about 140 last night. However, the trend shifted a little early afternoon in Europe as the euro rebounded a bit back into positive ground; after opening sharply lower, the bourses are only down about 0.5% on average. Oil is also up slightly reversing heavy losses overnight. The news flow was slightly mixed over the weekend. BP noted they had been able to stop the flow of oil a bit more yet there was nothing new out of the G-20 conference. But with some shot covering (maybe government intervention?) in the euro, the futures are trading at their highest level of the morning as of this writing. With everything going on, don’t look for the strength to hold. Expect a bit of selling back to the unchanged level which could accelerate simply because of where the futures were and the fact nothing major has changed although the strength in AAPL and AMZN much less BP will help mitigate any major decline in all likelihood.. The key will be if we can hold mid-morning. If so, expect a little rally into the noon hour. At 1PMish ET, AAPL will release its new device with the stock likely leading the market for the duration of the day. Focus on big caps with hyperfast conditions as well as the myriad of small caps and bigger entities with news particularly the ones from the ASCO.
Reiterating-
If the whole story is not there -
If something is good, assume either a short thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified.
If something is bad, assume either a buy thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified-
Good- The following stocks have good news and/or a strong technical pattern
CMTL- closed near a high after posting decent earnings
BP- according to the company, they are gradually halting the flow of new oil from the Gulf well; RIG will likely move in sympathy
BMY- positive data from its Ipilimumab skin cancer trial released at ASCO; also upgraded at Goldman Sachs
VVUS- positive phase III test results for its Avanafil released at ASCO
KRY- signed biding agreement with China Railway Resources to create a strategic partnership for a gold project in Venezuela
CELG- positive phase III Revlimid results released at ASCO
TLCR- being acquired by Grifols for 19 in cash plus .641 shares of Grifols (valued at 26.06 as of Friday’s close)
PARD- positive phase III Spear Trial of Picoplatin released at ASCO
ARQL- positive phase II results released for ARQ 197 at ASCO
AMZN- upgraded by Goldman Sachs
BSDM- positive phase II clinical study results on its pancreatic cancer drug
Bad-The following stocks have bad news and/or a weak technical pattern
AAPL, AMZN- closed near a low
BIDU- closed near a low
BP- closed near a low
BUCY, NBL APC, DO, ATPG- closed near a low
SWN, DVN, RRC- closed near a low
MA- closed near a low
CLF- closed near a low
FCX- closed near a low
UAUA- closed near a low
PNC- closed near a low
CF- closed at a new trend low
MET- closed near a low
GAP- closed near a low
DCTH- negative phase III results released at ASCO from its PHP drug
APPY- negative update on its AppyScore FDA 510k filing
OII- lowered earnings guidance
Earnings:
MON JUN 7 BEFORE
None today
MON JUN 7 AFTER
FCEL PBY
Good luck today.
Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com
Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President
Joseph R. McCandless- Managing Partner
D. Timothy Seaquist- Managing Partner
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