Market Snapshot for Thursday, March 5, 2015

Market Snapshot

Asia: Japan +0.3% to 18751. Hong Kong -1.1% to 24193. China -0.95% to 3248. India +0.2% to 29448.
Europe: London +0.2%. Paris +0.5%. Frankfurt +0.3%.
Futures: Dow unchanged. S&P flat. Nasdaq +0.1%. Crude +1.5% to $52.30. Gold -0.1% flat to $1199.80.
10-year Treasury Yield flat at 2.12%

Economic News

8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 Productivity
8:30 Unit Labor Costs
10:00 Factory Orders
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory

Update:

Initial jobless claims increased by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000 for the week ended Feb. 28. Economists had expected claims to fall to 295,000.

Productivity fell at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, instead of the 1.8 percent pace it had reported last month.

Key earnings before the open

ACRE, AMRC, AXAS, BKCC, BRLI, BTE, CECE, CIEN, CNQ, COST, CSIQ, CTCM, CVGW, DATE, EXK, GTN, JOY, KR, MEI, NAVB, PRFT, SFE

Key earnings after the close

ADUS, ALDW, ALJ, ATSG, CKP, COO, DMD, DMND, EBS, ERII, ESL, FNSR, FRM, GALE, HCI, ICEL, MNTX, SKUL, TFM, THO, VMEM, WX, YY, ZQK

Markets

Stocks are set for another weak open this morning, after falling for the second straight day yesterday. The selling has brought the Dow and S&P to their lowest levels in two weeks. Declines were broad-based, with nearly all S&P 500 sectors in negative territory.

U.S. investors have pulled $16.8B from equity-based ETFs in 2015 and sent $16.9B to bonds. That’s the biggest divergence in quarterly data going back to 2000. With nine straight quarters of stock-market gains, equity valuations at a five-year high, and the Fed bracing to raise interest rates, investors may be rethinking the $240B they’ve pumped into U.S. stocks over the past two years.

China lowered its growth forecast to 7% for 2015, in line with expectations. Last year’s target was around 7.5%.

Stocks

Abbvie (ABBV) acquires cancer Pharmacyclics (PCYC) for around $21B. Earlier yesterday there were rumors swirling that J&J (JNJ) would be the buyer. AbbVie gets blockbuster Imbruvica in the deal, which logged $548M in revenues in 2014.

Costco reported FQ2 EPS of $1.35 on revenue of $27.45B, largely in line with estimates. Same-store sales grew 8%, beating expectations of 6.4% growth. Comment »

Apple is reportedly delaying production of the 12.9″ iPad to September due to supply issues. It had originally targeted to start production in Q1.

HBO (TWX) is talking with Apple (AAPL) as a launch partner for its streaming service, to be called “HBO Now,” which rolls out next month. For Apple, it would mean a chance to add a high-quality offering to push adoption of Apple TV.

Bristol-Myers (BMY) gets a boost after the FDA approved Opdivo for the treatment of patients with advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer with progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. NSCLC is the most common form of lung cancer, affecting almost 90% of lung cancer patients.