Earnings, Buybacks, & Takeovers

Good morning. Strength in overseas markets, better-than-expected earnings (see MA, HWCC, CMG, YUM, RIG), more stock buyback announcements, and continued takeover action is this morning's focus. While the ADP report finds the weakest job growth in four years, investors don't seem worried headed into Friday's jobs report. Later this morning, data on factory orders will be out at 10:AM and the weekly EIA Petro report at 10:30AM.

Notable premarket gainers this morning include shares of PTIE, BWLD, BCRX, HRSH, OSCI, HWCC, IDSA, VPHM, ALVR, BWLD, NVTL, ANPI, IVGN, KOG, FSLR, NGEN, TLAB, TEVA, BRLC, DNDN, and JSDA. Premarket losers are HSTX, CGPI, DIVX, SNTS, SOFO, SOHU, PCOP, ICAB, ACAS, IMMU, SUMT, CBAK, RUTH, ARRY, SBGI, GRMN, and CTSH.

Like the past couple of days, we've seen fairly choppy trading with a positive bias and this morning's indications show continuation of that type of trading action. I'll be looking for potential trades for the first hour or so (I'm not seeing much of interest so far) and if I don't find anything I'm headed to the golf course on this beautiful day. Have a good one!