FRIDAY - No News Means a Focus on Cyprus

In the premarket, futures trading in the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY), Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DIA) and the Nasdaq (Nasdaq: QQQ) are indicating a higher open.

There are no economic reports scheduled for Friday, and as such, the market has its focus. It is squarely on Cyprus. The Russians reportedly rebuked the Cypriot outreach to it, probably because the Cypriots would not give up the EU in exchange, or enough of whatever else was being offered for the greedy Russians. Now Cyprus supposedly has until Monday to stabilize its banks, which under the threat of the gun cocked by the Europeans and the IMF means either taxing its citizens’ bank deposits and facing their fury or accepting bankruptcy and a return to the Cypriot pound outside of Europe. Cyprus is rightly afraid because if it stands beyond Europe’s reach, it would have to deal with the Turks alone (not really though). There are so many issues at play that I will concentrate a specific article on the topic for the weekend at the blog.

In other news, Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Raskin address U.S. labor market conditions in a speech Friday. Thursday produced a Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims increase of 2,000. The four-week moving average was 339,750, which is lower by 7,500.

On the corporate news wire, look for Headwaters (NYSE: HW) to meet with analysts. Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) is giving a customer company tour in Boston. Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) is having its investor day in Toronto. Reporting earnings are Tiffany (NYSE: TIF), Darden Restaurants (NYSE: DRI), Intelligent Systems (NYSE: INS), GenVec (Nasdaq: GNVC), Michael Foods (Nasdaq: MIKL) and NTS Inc. (NYSE: NTS). Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) said it would fire 750 workers after paring distribution centers. J.C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) said its turnaround could take a bit longer than initially expected. Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) hit 100% renewable energy usage at its data centers run by solar arrays.

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