Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Market futures point to a mixed open ahead of the bell this morning, with the Nasdaq in slightly positive territory, the Dow down in the low double-digits and the S&P 500 basically unched. Most of the Dow laggards from the past quarter or so were those that went up in regular Tuesday trading when the index was down overall.

The more tech-heavy Nasdaq looks to bounce back slightly from Tuesday, where it fell slightly more than did the Dow yesterday. But this comes without any major econ data released before the bell today, although we did see a few more retailers reports earnings that might impact the market this morning.

Target (TGT Quick QuoteTGT - Free Report) beat earnings expectations ahead of the bell with $1.23 per share easily topping the $1.14 in the Zacks consensus estimate. Same-store sales were slightly higher than expected, but the big-box retailer did lower its comps for its Q3 and Q4 guidance. Shares have tumbled 5% in today’s pre-market.

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s (LOW Quick QuoteLOW - Free Report) disappointed by missing on its top and bottom lines: $1.37 per share did not reach the $1.42 expected on revenues of $18.26 billion under the $18.72 billion estimate. Comps of 0.2% were only half what had been expected, and LOW shares are also down 5% ahead of the bell.

Clothier American Eagle (AEO Quick QuoteAEO - Free Report) , however, posted a top-line and bottom-line beat in its fiscal Q2 2017 results: 23 cents per share versus 21 cents expected, and quarterly sales of $822.5 million beat the $819 million in the Zacks consensus. Yet AEO shares are down in the pre-market almost as much as Lowe’s and Target’s are.

Not much looks to sway current trends on today’s horizon — although Cisco’s (CSCO Quick QuoteCSCO - Free Report) announcement that it will lay off 14K workers as it continues to shift business goals might resonate as a slight negative sentiment. At 2pm ET today we will see the release of the Fed minutes from its most recent FOMC meeting. What analysts will be looking for are shifts in language pointing to a more hawkish outlook toward raising interest rates, although almost no one expects an interest rate hike at the Fed’s September meeting.

Mark Vickery
Senior Editor