Daily Wrap

DJIA +33.25 (+0.23%) to 14,329.49; S&P 500 +2.80 (+0.18%) to 1,544.26; NASDAQ +9.72 (+0.30%) to 3,232.09

Today was a quiet lower volume trading day ahead of the Jobs numbers tomorrow morning.  I am currently showing consensus estimates at 162K and as a reminder (unless revised) last report came in at 157K.  The report will be out at 8:30am EST tomorrow giving us about an hour to digest and get the day’s bias before we open.

Time Warner (TWX) was in the news as they announced plans to spin off its Time Inc. publishing division.  TWX expects the new entity to be trading before year end and the news sent TWX shares over 2% higher today.

Also in the news today was Gap (GPS) after their same-store-sales numbers were leaked to the street.  Later in the day GPS came out and confirmed the leak noting that SS rose 3%.  The stock gained over 4% for the day and the chart looks attractive.  While not textbook, the MACD has recycled and GPS broke its longer term down trend line (from the 10/05/12 high) after reporting earnings 2/28/13 after the close.  GPS now has the recent October 2012 highs of $38 in its sights and likely higher but that last push will likely be an ending push setting up a larger consolidation.

Today on the downside was Petmed Express (PETS), losing over 6% after being mentioned cautiously at Bank of America/Merrill (BAC) because of Amazon’s (AMZN) Wag.com which provides online access to pet medications.  This clearly puts the two companies in direct competition but for AMZN this is just a piece of the pie where it is PETS livelihood.  If I were a PETS investor I would be concerned about shrinking margins and that would be my focus in any future earnings reports and I would definitely be concerned with today’s Bearish Engulfing pattern.

The following noteworthy companies are scheduled to report earnings before tomorrow’s open: ANN, ARCO, FL, FSYS, GCO, KMG, MEA

Tomorrow is Jobs data so after the report we will have to check in with the charts and start preparing for what may lie ahead.  In the meantime, the trend remains the Bulls friend.