Market players are dealing with various crosscurrents here on Thursday morning. The most significant is a "sell the news" reaction to the press conference of European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi. Although Draghi sounded extremely dovish there was a negative reaction when he stated that the ECB had not considered rate cuts at this meeting. Other than that, Draghi was about as dovish as possible, but that tone was well-anticipated and the market could not hold on to its initial gains.
Earnings reports Wednesday night produced some big losers, with Tesla Inc. (TSLA) and Align Technology Inc. (ALGN) being the most significant. Facebook Inc. FB put up a great report again and seems to have shrugged off much of the concern about regulatory matters, but the opening gap was aggressively sold and the stock is trading down.
The dovish comments from Draghi have caused the euro to weaken against the dollar, which is negative for gold and other commodities.
Breadth is running 2,100 gainers to 4,500 losers. The leading group lately has been semiconductors, which is seeing profit taking, but Xilinx Inc. (XLNX) has bounced back after a gap-down open.
Tonight here on Thursday is the biggest earnings night of the quarter. We have reports coming from Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) , Alphabet Inc. (GOOG) , Intel Corp. (INTC) and Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) . With the "sell the news" reaction to Facebook it is going to be interesting to see how these companies react if they don't put up numbers as strong as what Facebook produced. There is likely some nervousness about that causing selling pressure.
I've sold down some things today and have made no new buys. I just don't see much that looks ready to run.
