Paint the Table

[Foxlette]

8:45AM: Cash market is poised to begin the day on a bullish note as positive earnings reports from the likes of Compaq (CPQ 11.10), Apple (AAPL 20.78), Adv. Micro Devices (AMD 17.91), Symantec (SYMC 66.95), Citigroup (C 49.30), and General Electric (GE 37.67) are helping to reverse yesterday's bearish tide... Other factors contributing to the bullish bias include a Lehman Bros. upgrade of IBM (IBM 117.25) to BUY from Mkt Perform ahead of tonight's earnings report and a better than expected initial claims report, which showed a decline in claims of 14K in the week of Jan. 12 to 384K (consensus 438K)...
Separately, Dec. Housing Starts fell 3.4% to 1.570M (consensus 1.610M) while Building Permits jumped 3.6% to 1.650M (consensus 1.560M)-- levels that remain extremely high given the headwinds of an economic recession and rising mortgage rates... Presently, the S&P futures are 6.20 points above fair value while the Nasdaq 100 PMI is up 24 points