Bank Concerns Back In The Headlines

There are lots of crosscurrents this morning, but the negative bank headlines are back in the news today, and weighing on financial stocks.

Last night, rumors swirled that the Clear Channel (CCU) deal may be in jeopardy. Then, early this morning, Deutsche Bank (DB) said that it may not meet its full year profit projections. No shocker there, but that knocked the futures lower and set a negative tone for the morning.

Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney cut estimates again for the big 4 banks (Citi, BofA, JPM, etc), and that sparked some additional selling in the bank stocks.

Jabil (JBL) warned about its profits also, and the stock is down significantly. JBL is heavily involved in tech supply chain, so its comments hit tech stocks and took most of them lower. But the RAG triumvirate (RIMM, AAPL, GOOG) are bucking the weakness and are all higher this morning.

Asia was mixed overnight, while the Yen is higher again today. The dollar is lower, which is also pushing up gold and commodities again. Oil is surging over $3 to $104.50 on a report that inventories didn't expand as expected. This is pushing energy stocks higher.

And a disappointing durable goods report is hitting bond yields, with the 10-year yield slipping to 3.46%.

After the big run the market has had, it is normal to have a pullback day. The put/call ratio is high at 1.27, which could help things stabilize. I don't mind some profit taking, but I don't want to see things get out of hand today. A benign consolidation day on moderate volume would be perfect.

long AAPL, GOOG