US stock futures were up more than a half percent Wednesday morning, building off of yesterday's late afternoon reversal. Triggering the move are comments from the People's Bank of China Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan that the his country will be looking to build its investments in Europe to help out with the mounting sovereign debt crisis. His comments echoed statements by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that China intends to support Europe by investing in the bailout fund. The Japanese Yen also fell after the Bank of Japan announced it would expand its bond-buying program.
If not for the news out of Asia, it's likely futures would have been under a bit of pressure this morning after lackluster growth numbers out of Europe. Again, however, it's the big guns in the North keeping things together. The Euro zone economy shrank at the tail end of 2011, but strength in France and Germany kept it from falling into a full-blown recession. Italy is among the most slumping nations to the South. It was the first time the Euro zone economy shrank since Q2 2009 during the financial crisis. Austerity cuts are likely to continue to curtail growth in the most debt-stricken countries.
Zynga (ZNGA) shares have been active since last night, when the social gaming company reporting its first earnings since becoming a public company. They beat on the top and bottom line, but it wasn't enough to satisfy investors. The stock is off about 7% this morning, but appears to be recovering somewhat into the open. Comcast (CMCSA) is also active this morning, with shares surging more than 6% after reporting a strong quarter.
Technically, the market continues to be resilient when faced with any degree of sell-off, doing constructive work above the new upper level floor. Right now it appears stocks are set to open at new highs of the year, let's see if we can hold and close above that level. The market has failed to even give a 2-4% correction to buy, so for now you have to be aggressive buying intraday drops. Strong US data may continue to be the catalyst for a rally.
In a segment from last night on Jim Cramer's Mad Money, Jim where he shares my analysis of the S&P. SEE THE CLIP HERE.
*DISCLOSURES: Scott Redler is long SPY, QCOM, CAT, OIH, CELG, WMT, ZNGA calls, LULU.
