Fedspeak

Good morning. With little economic data or corporate news to focus on this morning, investors remain on Fed watch ahead of several speeches from FOMC officials. Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen, and Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin are scheduled to speak in various events. Wall Street hopes this chatter will offer insight into the Fed's plans after Friday's jobs report.

Premarket trading has an optimistic tone as the market tries to find some stability after Friday's reaction to the jobs data. Positive news from Intel has helped premarket sentiment as investors seek safety in tech.

Premarket gainers: KMA, CHTP, RICK, CRUS, ARIA, CTDC, OPNT, COGT, TARR, SNCR, JASO, CRDC, AAPL, RVBD, VDSI, CTXS, CRNT, CROX, SNDK, NVDA, POZN, LFC, and RIMM.

Premarket losers: CHIP, CLWR, NUVO, BCSI, and ACGY.

As with our own economy, investors will also be watching for any signs that the global economy is getting soft. This morning that concern increased after a report showed that Japan's economy shrank more than forecast. One thing investors don't want to see is the growth on a worldwide scale starting to slow down especially since most earnings estimates rely on strong worldwide growth continuing for the rest of the year and beyond.

Like last week, it seems like we're in for a challenging week as the market is tied to the hip to whatever the Fed says. My goal is to ignore that noise as much as possible (even though it will be difficult) and concentrate more on working my screens and hopefully finding a few favorite situations that should do well irrelevant of the Fed's next move or speech. That seems like a much better way to spend our time versus gaming the Fed. Let's make it a great week!