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Wall Street Preview

LLY, PFE, T, S, VZ, XLY, F, BA, DHI, AAPL, VMW, STX, VIX

Wednesday the weekly MBA Mortgage Index will be released at 7:00a EST. At 8:15a EST, the January ADP Employment Change will be reported. Q-4 advanced GDP growth will come out at 8:30 EST, and the FMOC will top off the busy day of economic releases with its rate decision and policy statement scheduled for 14:15 ET.

Notable Earnings: Boeing NYSE:BA 73.65, -0.35 will announce its Quarterly results before the open.

US Equities finished Tuesday’s session mixed. The DJIA and S&P 500 gained 0.5% each, the NAS finished flat on sector rotation.

Volume was just above its 50-Day Average, more than 700-M shares changed hands on the floor of the NYSE.

Watching the VIX: the CBOE Volatility Index VIX 13.33, -0.24 ended lower by 1.8% after the past 2 session saw the near-term volatility measure settle in the Green.

DJIA +72.49 at 13954.42, NAS -0.64 at 3153.66, S&P 500 +7.66 at 1507.84

Industry Watch

Strong: Energy, Telecoms, Health Care

Weak: Consumer Discretionary, Technology

The energy space paced Tuesday’s advance thanks to strong earnings from Valero NYSE:VLO 43.77, +4.96,, and the 1.1% advance in Crude Oil contributed to the sector’s strength.

After energy, health care, telecoms, and utilities were among the Tuesday’s top performers as investors rotated into defensive-oriented stocks.

In the health care space, both Eli Lilly NYSE:LLY 54.32, +1.68, and Pfizer NYSE:PFE 27.70, +0.86 gained 3.2% after reporting up-beat earnings.

Telecoms expanded on the theme of sector rotation.

AT&T NYSE:T 34.68, +0.55, Sprint Nextel NYSE:S 5.64, +0.08, and Verizon Communications NYSE:VZ 43.50, +0.73 all gained about 1.5%.

The discretionary space underperformed as the SPDR Consumer Discretionary Select Sector ETF NYSEArca:XLY 50.46, -0.20 slipped 0.4%.

Ford Motor Company NYSE:F 13.14, -0.64 laggard after the carmaker fell 4.6% despite an earnings beat. The company expressed concerns about its European sales, such remarks were in-line with comments made during past earnings calls.

The discretionary sector avoided wider losses thanks to the relative strength observed in homebuilders.

This morning, DR Horton NYSE:DHI 23.82, +2.51 beat on both earnings and revenue. The strong report was welcomed by investors and shares of DR Horton spiked 11.8%.

The broader SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF NYSEArca: XHB 29.10, +0.29 gained 1.0%.

The technology sector finished with gains, but its performance was masked by the relative strength of Apple NASDAQ:AAPL 458.27, +8.44, which gained 1.9% after announcing a 128GB version of its 4th generation iPad device.

VMware NYSE:VMW 77.14, -21.18 was a laggard. The company, which specializes in technology infrastructure, plunged 21.5% after issuing cautious guidance. In addition, VMware announced plans to cut is workforce about 7.0%.

Seagate NYSE: STX 33.91, -3.50 fell 9.4% after its guidance disappointed investors. Tuesday’s selling came after Seagate rallied nearly 50.0% in the 8 wks leading into Monday’s report.

US Major Market Indexes Technical Analysis
Date Symbol Price Technical Analysis Support Resistance
29 Jan 2013 QQQ 67.25 Bullish (0.41) 67.20 68.20
29Jan 2013 DIA 138.65 Bullish (0.36) 125.25 NIL
29 Jan 2013 SPY 150.07 Bullish (0.39) 135.70

The market received 2 economic data points Tuesday.

The November Case-Shiller 20-city Home Price Index rose by 5.5%, while a 5.2% increase had been expected by the consensus, this follows the prior month’s increase of 4.3%.

The January consumer confidence reading of 58.6 fell short of the 65.1 expected by the consensus. Though equities slipped immediately after the report hit, the weakness proved to be short-lived.