Early Morning Watch

• Casino stocks having a nice pre-market.  Watch MPEL and LVS for morning movement.
• COOL, WNR both seetting up nicely this morning with WNR showing a possible swing setup to near 19.50
• SHZ on watch in trading range. Watch at 6.40
• Dollar is down (backfilling yesterday’s up move) which should allow equities some breathing room to move back up this morning.
• Housing starts and permits for future home construction rose more than expected in March, snapping back from the prior month’s winter depressed levels, government data showed on Tuesday.
• Earnings Stocks on Watch

Highlights summary from Egan Jones

• Asian stocks decline as Won, Kiwi drop after S&P cuts US rating outlook.
• Bank of Japan said to raise inflation forecast to 0.5% on commodity costs.
• Gold may top $1,500, extending rally to record, as US credit outlook cut.
• Greece to sell bills with two-year bond yields exceeding 20%: Euro Credit.
• Homebuilder confidence fell this month on sales outlook, NAHB Index shows.
• Oil drops to near $106 in Asia as concerns on US debt outlook grows.
• AIG said to near $600M sale of rail-car unit to Perella Weinberg Partners LP.
• AMD’s Q1 seen benefiting from flaw in Intel’s chips.
• Badger Meter posted Q1 earnings of 22 cents a share, missing avg estimate of 43 cents.
• Bank of NY Mellon’s March net income rose from $559M last year to $625M this year.
• Brown & Brown misses by $0.01, posts Q1 EPS of $0.32. Revs rose 3.9% to $262.2M.
• Citigroup profit falls less than estimated on consumer banking, reserves.
• Crane ups FY11 EPS view to $3.05-3.25 vs. $2.96 consensus; revs growth to ~10-12%.
• Eli Lilly’s net fell 15% on higher costs associated with a drug partnership and employee layoffs, revs rose 6%.
• Gannett’s earnings fell 23% as declining advertising revenue.
• GM is raising prices by an average of $123 a vehicle, cites rising materials costs.
• ICU Medical f’casts 2011 EPS of at least $2.50/sh vs. cons est of $2.35.
• Johnson & Johnson earnings $3.7B for March 2011 compared to $3.6B last year.
• KeyCorp swung to Q1 profit as credit quality improved, though revenue declined.
• LVMH reported a 17% jump in first-quarter sales, beating expectations.
• Novartis Q1 net off 4.3% at $2.82B, revenue up 16%, to reach $14.03B.
• Packaging Corp misses by $0.02, lowers Q2 EPS view to $0.35 vs. $0.45 cons.
• SABMiller PLC sold 3% more beer in Q4 and 2% more in the full year.
• TD Ameritrade’s profit rose 5.6%, as the company posted record trading volume.
• Texas Instruments sees Q2 EPS, revenue below est. on lower Japanese demand.
• US govt plans to sell a significant share of its remaining stake in GM this summer.
• Zions Bancorp swung to a Q1 profit of $14.8M from year-ago’s loss of $86.5M.

Strongest Sectors:

• Major Drugs led by NVS, JNJ (earnings)
• Metal Mining let by BHP.
• Gold trying to recover a little.  Watching GSS
• Investment Services led by GS
• BAC and C both up slightly this morning. Might run some banking scans after market  opens.