Wall Street Greek: THURSDAY: The ECB is Working It Baby

The ECB is really dictating the day Thursday for all markets, especially certain strife stricken European arenas. The ECB is going rate negative, or charging banks for its holding of capital for them, forcing them to put capital to use. In order to encourage them to lend to small businesses and households, the ECB is offering banks four-year low rate loans, which will be for such lending. Finally, it said asset purchases could be the next step if needed. This should help cautiousness ease and put more Europeans to work. It’s the reason why Societe Generale is higher by 3% and National Bank of Greece is up by 6% today. Oh, and the S&P 500 is looking higher, in case you hadn’t noticed, because a healthier Europe makes for a better U.S. economy as well.

U.S. Markets

Market ETF	06/05	YTD	TTM
Vanguard S&P 500 (NYSE: VOO)	+0.6%	+5.3%	+20.5%
iShares Dow Jones (NYSE: IYY)	+0.3%	+4.9%	+20.7%
Fidelity NASDAQ ETF (Nasdaq: ONEQ)	+1.0%	+2.7%	+25.7%
ProShares Ultra Gold (NYSE: UGL)	+1.9%	+6.7%	-24.2%
ProShares Ultra Real Estate (NYSE: URE)	+2.2%	+33.7%	+20.0%
ProShares Ultra Oil (NYSE: UCO)	-0.2%	+12.5%	+26.3%
WisdomTree US$ Bullish (NYSE: USDU)	+0.0%	-0.9%	+0.0%
iShares 20+ Yr. Treasury (NYSE: TLT)	+0.4%	+9.8%	-3.0%

Stocks are enjoying the push from Draghi. Enjoy!

International Markets

EUROPE	%	ASIA/PACIFIC	%
iShares Europe (NYSE: IEV)	+0.7%	Japan Equity (NYSE: JEQ)	+0.3%
WisdomTree UK (Nasdaq: DXPS)	-0.0%	China Fund (NYSE: CHN)	+0.1%
Societe Generale ADR (OTC: SCGLY)	+3.0%	Asia Tigers (NYSE: GRR)	+0.4%
WisdomTree Germany (Nasdaq: DXGE)	+0.5%	Korea Equity (NYSE: KEF)	-0.3%
National Bank Greece (NYSE: NBG)	+5.7%	India Fund (NYSE: IFN)	+1.0%

International markets have been led by the ECB’s significant action. Look for this run to continue, unless disrupted by Darth Vader, or the real life version in Moscow. There’s talk, Putin could cut off the gas to Ukraine any day, and certainly if further pressured by the West.

Economic Data

THURSDAY’S ECONOMIC REPORT SCHEDULE
Economic Data Point	Prior	Expect	Actual
THURSDAY
ECB Monetary Policy
BOE Monetary Policy
Chain Store Sales
Bloomberg Consumer Comfort	33.3		35.1
EIA Natural Gas Report	+114 bcf		119 bcf
Challenger Job-Cut Report	40,298		52,961
Weekly Jobless Claims	304K	310K	312K
Gallup US Payroll to Population	43.4		44.5
Kocherlakota Speaks
Fed Flow of Funds Data

Job cuts increased in the latest reported month, but weekly jobless claims continue to show a long-term trend toward nothingness. We have not seen these levels of claims since 2008. No matter how many people remain unemployed and off the radar, we can’t complain about the fact that at least people aren’t getting laid off.

Commodity Markets

United States Oil (NYSE: USO)	-0.2%
iPath SP Crude Oil (NYSE: OIL)	-0.1%
U.S. Natural Gas (NYSE: UNG)	+0.0%
U.S. Gasoline (NYSE: UGA)	+0.2%
SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE: GLD)	+0.8%
Market Vectors Gold Miners (NYSE: GDX)	+2.0%
iShares Silver Trust (NYSE: SLV)	+1.5%
iPath DJ UBS Industrial Metals (NYSE: JJM)	+0.0%
Teucrium Corn ETF (NYSE: CORN)	-1.3%
Teucrium Wheat Fund (NYSE: WEAT)	-1.0%
Teucrium Soybean Fund (NYSE: SOYB)	-1.2%
iPath DJ-UBS Cocoa (NYSE: NIB)	+0.5%
iPath DJ-UBS Sugar (NYSE: SGG)	-0.3%
ICE Orange Juice Conc.	+0.5%
CME Lumber	-0.1%
CME Live Cattle	+0.7%

Look at gold, boy oh boy! Stimulative central bank measures automatically trigger thoughts of fiat currency undermining. The ECB did cut all three of its main rates today, and so offers exactly that. But its actions to spur lending could eventually prove successful and lift the European economy enough to reverse these actions. Thus, perhaps this lift to gold is short-sighted, save for that worst case scenario where fiat currency is completely undermined and we’re left with just gold to trade. By the way, that’s a distinct possibility. For now, this and the potential for Putin action give gold a floor to hold on to.

Stock Activity

The day’s earnings outlook offers a short list that does include some important names. The day’s most active list follows.

EPS REPORTS
Company	Ticker
THURSDAY
American Superconductor	Nasdaq: AMSC
Analogic	Nasdaq: ALOG
Bio-Reference Laboratories	Nasdaq: BRLI
Breeze-Eastern	NYSE: BZC
Cantel Medical	NYSE: CMN
Ciena	Nasdaq: CIEN
Comtech Telecommunicaitons	Nasdaq: CMTL
Cooper Cos.	NYSE: COO
Diamond Foods	Nasdaq: DMND
Hooker Furniture	Nasdaq: HOFT
J.M. Smucker	NYSE: SJM
Joy Global	NYSE: JOY
Mad Catz Interactive	NYSE: MCZ
Navistar Int’l	NYSE: NAV
Quanex Building Products	NYSE: NX
Rally Software Development	Nasdaq: RALY
SeaChange Int’l	Nasdaq: SEAC
Selectica	Nasdaq: SLTC
Thor Industries	NYSE: THO
Titan Machinery	Nasdaq: TITN
UTi Worldwide	Nasdaq: UTIW
Vail Resorts	NYSE: MTN
Vera Bradley	NYSE: VRA
VeriFone Systems	NYSE: PAY
Vince Holdings	Nasdaq: VNCE

TODAY’S MOST ACTIVE STOCKS
BIGGEST GAINERS	% Gain
Uni-Pixel (Nasdaq: UNXL)	+30%
Ventrus Biosciences (Nasdaq: VTUS)	+17%
Breeze-Eastern (NYSE: BZC)	+20%
Dehaier Medical (Nasdaq: DHRM)	+18%
Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN)	+19%
Celldex Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CLDX)	+17%
Vital Therapies (NYSE: VTL)	+16%
Bio-Reference Laboratories (Nasdaq: BRLI)	+16%
Acorn International (NYSE: ATV)	+14%
Halozyme Therapeutics (Nasdaq: HALO)	+14%
BIGGEST LOSERS	% Drop
InterCloud Systems (Nasdaq: ICLDW)	-14%
Life Time Fitness (NYSE: LTM)	-12%
Zynga (Nasdaq: ZNGA)	-12%
RCS Capital (Nasdaq: RCAP)	-10%
Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD)	-9%
ATA, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAI)	-9%
Heron Therapeutics (Nasdaq: HRTX)	-8%
Lentuo Int’l (NYSE: LAS)	-4%
eOn Communications (Nasdaq: EONC)	-9%
CABCO Series 2004 (NYSE: GYB)	-8%

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