Earnings season rolls on in the US but the sovereign debts of struggling European countries stole the headlines for another day. Early selling hit the market after Standard & Poor's followed up yesterday's downgrades of Greece and Portugal with a cut of Spain's debt rating by one step to AA. Yet another blow to the Eurozone. On the other side of the pond the Federal Reserve released its April FOMC policy statement today leaving rates unchanged and keeping the "exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period" language. The Fed is still concerned about deflationary pressures with "substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures".Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) soared after hours with the release of its Q1 earnings report beating expectations with EPS of $2.10 handily outpacing the $1.50 estimate. BIDU is trading nearly 90 points higher clearing $700 per share and now up 72.8% year-to-date. Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) exit from China is clearly seen as a boon to the company with Baidu's shares now trading 94 times earnings. The Bank of New York announced that it will change the ADR ratio from 1:1 to 10:1 which will bring the US dollar price down the $70 range.
Gold, that I trade through NYSE:GLD, was uneventful today just consolidating the recent move into the 1,170 resistance level. I'll look to add with a move through the highs of yesterday and today. Agnico-Eagle Mines (NYSE:AEM) broke out today through the $62 level gaining over 4% on the day. I bought a decent position this morning and sold most of it before today's close. I shorted some shares of Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU) this morning based on the technical weakness yesterday. My stop is at $64 on the upside. Shares of Nike (NYSE:NKE) have had a couple days of weakness and I'm considering picking up some extra shares around the $76 area.
Disclosure: Long NKE, AEM, GLD. Short PRU.