HAS BARRON’S RUNG THE BELL AT A TOP?

May 13—17, 2013 If you read Barron’s issue dated May 11^th, you might be wondering, as I am, whether it has rung the bell at a market top, touting how right it was to be bullish, and writing "Special Reports" on every bullish word it’s ever printed, in the last three years seeing the S&P 500 up another 100 pointes before the rally is over—even as long time editor and columnist Alan Abelson’s obit was written, the one contrary voice that could, often, be counted on to dose the flames of equity passion. By the way, if you live outside New York City, your issue dated May 11^th, doesn’t appear at your door until the 12^th—which News Corp’s customer service personnel alleges is within its cone of entitlement, claiming it has until Monday to deliver the issue subscribers farther away from its New York presses. Given that it’s on the web on Saturday, and can be printed out on brighter paper, for less than the $5 newstand price, those 300K home delivery subscriptions are likely to shrink, considerably, from here. That should give pause to anyone buying NWS before the publishing assets are split off. If you’re playing any group for a Mother’s Day boost, know that aside from greeting cards, most of the big business was booked by movie theaters and restaurants. And flowers here, anyway, are as likely to be bought from a roadside truck, gourmet food store, or supermarket, rather than Pro Flowers, 1 800 Flowers, or other specialist, and a dozen long stemmed roses have never been cheaper than they were, here, this year: $14.99.

While the Earnings Calendar hones in on retailers, the Economic Calendar is fair competition, with April Retail Sales, on Monday, April PPI on Wednesday, April CPI, along with Housing Starts & Building Permits, on Thursday, when so many Fed members are speaking, the hawk and dove case on QE3 should be clearly reiterated. Friday is an Options Expiration which, alone, introduces a different twist to the pattern of Monday’s down, Friday’s up meekly, and more of the lagging sectors joining the party. You might, also, have noticed that a good chunk of the day’s volume appears long before noon, and some of the stocks that start out the strongest in the a.m. fade to barely black by day’s end. That’s not just the usual cohort of day traders but traders, in general, afraid to miss the gains, even as they’re afraid of staying long overnight. There are a lot of trigger ready longs aware a rally cannot last forever without a 5% pullback now and then.

The meat of this week’s earnings reports is kicked off Wednesday morning, when both Deere & Macy*s are scheduled to report. After market Wednesday, it’s Cisco, Jack in the Box, and L brands, formerly known as Limited Brands, even though it hasn’t owned the chain called "Limited," for years. That’s caused management to do some soul searching and switch to L Brands, leaving the ticker unchanged, as LTD, until the new name is debuted. While Victoria’s Secret seems obvious to you and me, don’t forget it also owns Henri Bendel, which for the first time, a few years ago, started opening leather goods and accessories stores in select malls and is sure to spread the theme far and wide. For now, the brown striped Bendel trademark still has cache.

Thursday morning, reports are due from Kohl’s and Walmart. KSS has badly lagged the market rally and, when it was still reporting monthly comparable store sales, had been disappointing. One has to ask, if Kohl’s couldn’t capitalize during a time JCP (formerly known as J C Penney) was collapsing, driving its customers from its doors, what will KSS do if Mike Ullman actually gets Penney’s house in order? Truth is, Terry Lundgren, over at Macy*s, has been killing retail for every competitor, offering a pyramid of discounts on apparel and shoes because, it can, with buying power that few can approach, even as Macy*s doesn’t have to worry if apparel and shoes are loss leaders as long as it keeps cranking out sales in its furniture, mattress, luggage, and home department—the dilution of Martha Stewart’s exclusivity not at all an idle threat, had the judge in M’s suit against JCP not seemed to favor the terms of M’s exclusivity—keeping the connection to Martha off every home item she designed arriving in JCP’s stores, this spring.

Thursday afternoon, reports are expected from Applied Materials, JCPenney, Nordstrom and Sina, the Chinese web property lately known best for Weibo, in which Alibaba has made a big investment. As irony would have it, JCP and Macy*s both host shareholder meetings, Thursday.

The Events Calendar is bursting with events, with only a couple of weeks left before summer sends the investment banks, mostly, into hibernation, until the days after Labor Day weekend. Of course, you might have noticed summer trading is already hitting stocks, as last Friday’s lousy excuse for volume in equities neared a joke.

First up, note all the energy/power related events this week. Monday, Susquehanna’s Energy, Deutsche bank is Clean Tech, Utilities, & Power, Connect ’13 is for Electric co-ops’ communications departments which, translated, means their investor relations division. Also Monday, Bk of America/Merrill Lynch’s (BAC/MER to us) Global Energy & Power Leveraged Finance in NY, even as Platt’s holds a Crude Oil Summit in London, and FBR Capital hosts an Energy & Industrials 101 Series meeting in Boston. And Energy still isn’t done because on Tuesday, Citi hosts Global Energy & Utilities in Boston, Mitsubishi Oil & Gas in New York. A heck of a lot of Energy/Power related events for any week but this one timed to a bounce in energy equities that finally looked real, last week.

Aside from the mass of energy events that will make energy a focus, there are a couple of other events that should not be overlooked. They include BAC/MER’s Health Care Conference in Las Vegas, as well as that firm’s Global Transportation Conference in Boston. They start Monday & Tuesday respectively. Also starting Tuesday, JPMorgan’s Tech, Media & Telecom (TMT) Conference, like the Transport one, in Boston, and BMO Capital’s 2013 Farm to market Conference, in New York. BAC/MER is not done yet, in Barcelona Spain, Tuesday, also, for a Global Metals, Mining & Steel Conference. Macquarie Extreme Services including companies like CoreLogic, DealerTrack, Manpower & Global Payments, Wednesday, though you’ll probably hear and see a lot more attention devoted to Google’s I/O Developer Conference. Unlike some past GOOG conferences that were devoted to a single aspect of its business, this one has tracks in Cloud, Android, YouTube--even Google+. I can’t say its converging its many segments, the way Apple does iOS but it’s been rare for Google to cover everything in one place, as it will over a few days this week, in San Francisco. Even JPMorgan’s Business Services Conference, which overlaps, on Thursday, will make barely a peep, compared to I/O, especially since JPM hosts it in London, with mostly 1x1 and small group meetings. Deutsche Bank’s Access Housebuilders Day is also in London, which might give RBC’s Aerospace & Defense Conference, in New York, the edge, on Thursday.

Then, again, it’s an Expiration week, and likely to see strong put buying into Friday—just in case. And while JPM expects all the megacap tech names like Microsoft, IBM and Intel, it might pay to bear in mind, this week is mid-quarter, on the calendar, and tech names known for issuing mid-quarter updates, are likely to do so in advance of their presentations at JPM. Keynotes will be delivered by, among others, AT&T, ARM Holdings, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Equinix, Texas Instruments, and JPM CEO/CB Jamie Dimon. It’s quite telling, donchya think, that ARMH is delivering a keynote—at the opening breakfast, after brief remarks from JPM’s Jennifer Nason (Global Chair for TMT Investment Banking), rather than Intel or Microsoft? For the record, neither Intel nor Google are on the preliminary Agenda published prior to the past weekend. Google’s executives, as I’ve pointed out, will be busy at I/O but companies could be added, or appear in any of the scheduled panels whose participants were not named on the Agenda prior to this past weekend. I haven’t dwelled on UBS’ Global Financial Services One-on-one, even though UBS’ CFO and JPM’s Mike Cavanagh are among the speakers named because the nature of a 1x1 conferences is by the election of clients. Still, among the speakers the Bank of Spain and American Enterprise Institute are also named.

So, any way you slice it, it’s a big week, with the Economic, Earnings, and Events Calendars all featuring some telling items that could sway markets that will, already, be hostage to the dollar buying 102 yen, and an expiration that could be wilder than recent ones—even if June is the big quarterly one. The markets continuing to fly, despite three more central bank rate cuts last week, and the inevitable transition that the FOMC must make, soon, if the economy justifies even half the stock market’s gains, feel a little like scenes out of "The Great Gatsby:" There were some great parties, depicted in the movie to excess, before the music stopped, and dark clouds led to death. And how fitting that F. Scott Fitgerald’s book seemed to capture—perhaps crystallize—the wildest of the roaring 20’s, just before the greatest crash of all—the crash of ’29. It’s long past time to protect against a bout of possibly stiff profit-taking that could open the trap door that serious selling could open, just as summer swings into high gear, and the vanishing volume that has the potential to create air pockets that will be the equivalent of many mini crashes on the way to another big one like the one seen in May 2010.

At the very least, don’t trust the markets up here—just as tech is about to deliver mid-quarter updates, and the largest retailers start reporting their results. If nothing else, worry about this week’s Barron’s various "special report" on stocks making new all time highs (ex-inflation, as it points out in a single line in the magazine), because the cover story indicator is one of the most reliable. While consumers are responsible for 70% of the economy, more and more of their paychecks are going to taxes, gasoline, and food, not to mention dentists, allergy medicines, and summer entertainment for the kids. That doesn’t leave a heck of a lot for much else, for probably 70% of consumers. And there’s a message in the fact that this year’s Saks 5^th Avenue Friends & Family promotion was cranked up to 25%, after a few years of 20% off. Even the high end is having trouble moving all its stock and that might be because while Wall Street seems to have quickly forgotten the message of the financial crisis, many of the nouveau riche have not. Don’t you forget, either.

ECONOMIC: (more here)
Sunday, May 12
Mother's Day (Movie theaters & Restaurants were packed)
Australian Home Loans (Overnight into US Monday a.m.)
Chinese (April & YTD) Industrial Production, Fixed Asset Investment & Retail Sales (overnight into US Monday a.m.)
Japan April Money Stock M3 (overnight into U.S. Mon. et)
Australian March Home Loans/Investment Lending (overnight into US Mon. et)

Monday, May 13
April US Retail Sales
March US Manufacturers' & Trade Inventories/Sales
Pres. Obama meets with UK P.M. David Cameron
US Treasury Auctions $29B Reopened 3-month Bills & $24B 6-month Bills
China April Fixed Dollar Investment (overnight into US Mon. a.m.)
German April Wholesale Price Index + CPI
Japan April Machine Tool Orders
Eurozone Finance Ministers Meet
Italian General March Gov't Debt
Eurozone March Industrial Production, ZEW Survey of Economic Sentiment

Tuesday, May 14
Fed's Plosser speaks on Economic Outlook in Stockholm
NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
ICSC/GS + Redbook Weekly Retail Store Sales
April US Import/Export Prices
US Fed Releases Quarterly Household Debt Report

Wednesday, May 15
US April PPI
Mortgage Bankers Weekly Purchase/Refinance Applications (following uptick in rates)
May NAHB Housing Market Index (recall, a couple of months were weak)
April Buildfax Remodeling Index
March US TICs
NY Fed Empire State Manufacturing Survey
April Industrial Production/Capacity Utilization
1Q13 eCommerce Sales
EIA Weekly Petroleum Stats
Australian April New Motor Vehicle Sales (overnight into US Thurs. a.m.)
Japanese Consumer Confidence
French Q1 GDP
German Q1 GDP
Italian GDP
UK Jobless Claims + Average Weekly Earnings March & YTD
Eurozone Q1 GDP
Canadian Manufacturing Shipments +April Existing Home Sales
Japan Foreign Bond + Stock Buying (overnight into Thurs. a.m. et)
Japan Q1 GDP (a little too soon for weak yen & Abenomics to make a difference)

Thursday, May 16
Fed's Plosser speaks on Economic Outlook in Milan, Italy
Fed's Rosengren speaks on impact of Austerity on Monetary Policy in Milan
Fed's Fisher speaks on Monetary Policy @NABE Energy Conference (Houston)
Fed's Bloom Raskin speaks on Prospects for Recovery @Nat'l Economics Club
Fed's Williams speaks on Economy in Portland, OR
ECB's Mario Draghi speaks
US Weekly Applications for Unemployment
April CPI
April US Housing Starts/Building Permits
Philadelphia Fed May Business Outlook Survey
April US Real Average Hourly Earnings
S&P March Healthcare Economic Indices
Turkey's P.M. in D.C.
RBA Foreign Exchange Transactions (overnight into Fri a.m. US et)
Japanese March Industrial Production/Utilization (overnight into Fri. US et)
Eurozone April CPI + Trade Balance
Canadian Int'l Securities Transactions
New Zeland Q1 Producer Prices (overnight into US Fri. a.m. et)
Chinese April Property Prices (overnight into US Fri. a.m. et)

Friday, May 17
Options Expire
Fed's Kocherlakota speaks on Monetary Policy & Financial Regs @Booth Biz School (U of Chicago)
US House sets hearing on IRS "interest" in Tea Party-related returns. Appearing only the IRS Commissioner & the Treasury Investigator for Tax Administration
U.M. Preliminary May Consumer Sentiment
ECRI Leading Weekly Index
Conference Board's April Leading Indicator Index
Eurozone April New Car Registrations & March Construction OutputCanadian April CPI

Saturday, May 18
FOMC Chief Bernanke delivers Commencement Speech at Bard College (rarely discussed monetary policy at that kind of event)

Sunday, May 19
UK Rightmove May House Prices
Japanese April Machine Tool Orders (overnight into wee hours of US Mon. a.m.)

                          WEEKS AHEAD: 05//22 FOMC May 01 Meeting Minutes Released
                                                    05/31 OPEC 183rd Ordinary Meeting (Vienna, Austria)
                                                    06/18--19 FOMC Meets, Statement & Forecasts @2pm+ Bernanke Press Conference on19th @2:30pm

EARNINGS: (Not quite all Retail all the time but close. CSCO, Wed., a notable exception)
MONDAY 05/13: a.m. CEL, ITRN, NSSC, NAT, PERI, POST?, MOBI, SSYS, VSR

    p.m. SVN, AMCN, AU?, ARTX, AERL?, AUGT, CPA, EGL, GOL, HMIN, IOC, RMKR., SANW, SCIL, SCTY, STXS, SUMR, SMLP. TTWO, TRQ, VELT, WX

TUESDAY 05/14: a.m. AMS,  ARKA,  AMAP, CACH, CAAS, DKS?, RDY, GSOL, HCLP, PATH, OPXA, PTN, PAAS, VAL

    p.m. A, ALXA, ALC?, CRMB, EXP, LFL, NLST, PLAB, QKLS, TXCC, VOXX

WEDNESDAY 05/15: a.m. AH?, ACXM, ACAT, CHLN, CSC, CGX, DE, AG, M, BABY, PF, VIP

    p.m. ANW, CSCO, CGX, EGLE, JACK, LTD, LWAY, NTES, SB, SBSA, SAPE, SVM?, TMHC, YOKU

THURSDAY 05/16: a.m. ALKS, BRC, CAE, IMOS, FLO, KSS, NM?, PERY?, PBH, SOL, WMT

    p.m. VNET, AMAT, ARUN, ADSK, BRCD,  DELL, JCP, NWY?, JWN, PSUN?, SCVL?, SINA, VSAT,

FRIDAY 05/17: a.m. BWS?, DCI, GMAN?, SSI p.m. BH

EVENTS:
CONTINUING SUNDAY 05/12
None carried over because of Mother’s Day

STARTING SUNDAY 05/12
Nat’l Hospital Week (Thru 18^th)
Laser World Congress+World of Photonics (Munich thru 16^th)
Oppenheimer/NASDAQ OMX (NDAQ) 14^th Annual Israeli Conference (Tel Aviv)
Glaxo (GSK) & Therapvance (THRX) FDA act ended today on their COPD drug, Fluticasone Furoate FF/VI aka Breo Ellipta approved last Friday, 5/10/13
Macy*s (M) Salutes American Icons For $3, supporters of Get Back-Got Your 6 get a 20/15% savings pass for any day they choose, or for $6 a button to wear plus the discounts, with 100% of the purchase price ($3 or $6) donated to Got Your 6 (Military term meaning to have someone’s back) and its non-profit partners, while supplies last
Mother’s Day in recent years, all about cards, flowers and meal out, sometimes gourmet chocolate, less about jewelry

MONDAY 05/13
BAC/MER Health Care Conference (Las Vegas thru 16^th)
Susquehanna 2013 Energy Conference (NY thru 14^th)
Deutsche Bank Clean Tech, Utilities & Power Conference (NY thru 14^th)
Connect ’13 (Electric Co-op Markets) Communications (I.R.) Departments (Orlando thru 16^th)
BAC/MER Global Energy & Power Leveraged Finance (NY thru 14^th)
Platt’s Crude Oil Summit (London)
FBR Capital Energy & Industrials 1-1 Series (Boston MA)
12^th Annual JMP Securities Research Conference (San Francisco thru 15^th)
New York Hard Asset (Metals & Minerals) Investment Conference (Thru 14^th)
Macquarie Korea Taiwan Corporate Day (London thru 14th)
WWW 2013 (World Wide Web & W3C Consortium: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil thru 17^th)
ICMI ACCE Call Center (Seattle WA thru 16^th)
ITW: Int’l Telecoms Week (Chicago thru 15^th)
Uptime Institute Symposium (Santa Clara CA thru 16^th)
GovSEC + TREXPO (Washington DC thru 15^th)
BAC/MER Turkey & Russia Consumer Fieldtrip (Istanbul, Moscow, ST. Petersburg)
Facebook (FB) Final lock-up expiration only 47.3m shares including those held by early investor DST Global Ltd
FelCor Lodging Trust Inc (FCH) Investor Meetings: Midwest (thru 14^th)
Microsoft’s (MSFT) Visual Studio Live (Chicago thru 16^th)
NetSuite (N) SuiteWorld (San Jose CA thru 16^th)
SodaStream Int’l (SODA) Investor & Analyst Day (1pm est)
Textainer Group Holdings Ltd (TGH) Investor Day (10am est)
TV Upfronts underway, with (NWS) FOX TV releasing its schedule today, just days after Randy Jackson announced he was leaving "American Idol" after this season, the only judge to remain with the show all 12 years. Also today, (CMCSK) NBC.

TUESDAY 05/14
BAC/MER Global Transportation Conference (Boston thru 16^th)
UBS Global Financial Services One-on-One (NY)
Oppenheimer 9^th Annual Industrial Growth Summit (NY thru 15^th)
BMO Capital 2013 Farm To Market Conference (NY thru 15^th)
Citi Global Energy & Utilities Conference (Boston thru 16^th)
Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Oil & Gas Corporate Access Day (NY thru 16^th)
JPMorganTech, Media & Telecom Conference (Boston MA thru 16^th)
Mitsubishi Oil & Gas Corporate Access (NY)
BAC/MER Global Metals, Mining & Steel Conference (Barcelona Spain thru 16^th)
Deutsche Bank Access German, Swiss & Austrian Conference (Frankfurt DE thru 15^th)
Imperial Capital Consumer Summit (Santa Monica CA)
FOSE (+GovSEC Washington DC thru 16^th)
Joint Warfighting 2013 Symposium (Virginia Beach VA thru 16^th)
SOFIC: Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (Tampa FL thru 16^th)
MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) Industry Summit (Barcelona Spain)
United Fresh (WFM Keynotes) {fresh fruit & vegetables: San Diego thru 16^th]
World Aluminum Conference (London thru 16^th)
Credit Suisse China Autos Corporate Days (NY, San Francisco, Boston thru 17^th)
StratConn Digital Shopping Marketing: Path to Purchase (Chicago thru 15^th)
BlackBerry (BBRY) World Live+Jam (Orlando thru 16^th)
Brightcove Inc (BCOV) Analyst Day at PLAY 2013 (Boston 1pm est)
EPL Oil & Gas (EPL) Analyst Day (Houston (7:30am cdt)
Interactive Intelligence Group (ININ) Analyst & Investor Day (Indianapolis IN 1:30pm est)
Nokia (NOK) (@4am est) new Win8 based Lumia Smartphone (925) launches in US "at major carrier" Verizon Wireless (VZ/VOD)
SAP’s SAPhire ASUG (User Conference Orlando thru 16th)
U.S. Silica Holdings (SLCA) Investor Day (5:30pm est)
TV Upfronts Univision (TV), (DIS)'s ABC, and CBS (CBS), and Discovery (DSCO) U.S. Hispanic, plus (CMCSK) Telemundo.  
MGM Grand (MGM) hosts the Floyd Mayweather fight in Vegas and on pay/per/view

WEDNESDAY 05/15
Macquarie Extreme Services Conference (NY)
Credit Suisse London Commodities Day (London, of course)
NABE: Nat’l Ass’n for Business Economics Energy Conference (Will the Oil & Gas boom Reignite the Economy?) Speakers from COP, Dallas Fed’s Fisher, GE, DOW+More
Citi Taiwan Investor Conference (Hong Kong thru 16^th)
JPMorgan European Investor 1x1 Conference (Amsterdam)
EDUCAUSE 10^th Annual (IT) Security Professionals Conference (Indianapolis IN thru 17^th)
BAC/MER 2013 Global Foreign Exchange Workshop (Chicago & Brussels, Belgium thru 16^th)
CoreLogic Inc (CLGX) Analyst Meeting (starts 1pm et)
Google (GOOG) I/O Developer Conference (San Francisco thru 17^th)
Thomson Reuters (TRI) Mngmnt Meets Clients of Lazard Capital in Boston
TV Upfronts today: (NWS) Fox Hispanic, NCM Media Networks, (DIS) ESPN Deportes, NUVOtv, (TWX)'s TNT/TBS, CBSand Tr3s.
IMAX (IMAX) 3D theaters get a 2-day jump on wide release of "Star Trek Into Darkness"

THURSDAY 05/16
World Conference on Interventional Oncology (NY thru 19^th)
JPMorgan Business Services Conference (London)
7^th Annual Barrington Research Industrial & Business Services Conference (Chicago IL)
RBC Capital Markets Aerospace & Defense Conference (NY)
Deutsche Bank Access Italy Conference (London)
Deutsche Bank Access Housebuilders Day (London)
INS: Infusion Therapy (Charlotte NC thru 23^rd)
Macquarie Korea Corporate Day (New York thru 17^th)
JPMorgan Global Outlook Conference (Amsterdam)
Clinical Trials in Oncology (Prague, Cech. Thru 17^th)
Amarin Corp plc (AMRN) Mngmnt meets with Lazard Clients
EPL Oil & Gas Inc (EPL) Analyst Meeting (NY starts 8am edt)
JCP (or is it JCPenney again?) Annual Shareholder Meeting
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) demonstrates da Vinci Robot in London @Healthcare Conference
Nokia (NOK) Lumia 928 Launches Today, exclusively at Verizon Wireless (VZ/VOD)
Progressive Corp (PRG) 2013 Investor Relations Meeting (starts 1pm et)
SAP (SAP) Investor Meeting at SAPphire (See 05/16)
STMicroelectronics NV (STM) 2013 Investors & Analysts Day (starts 1pm GMT)
Questar Corp (STR) Analyst Day Boston
Texas Instruments (TXN) DevCon (Cleveland OH)
TV Upfronts today: (Jtly CBS/TWX)'s The CW, and (TWX) USA Network, plus (NWS)'s Home Team Sports from the newly born Fox Sports Media Group, as well as (TWC)'s Time Warner Cable.
MOVIE OPENINGS: "Star Trek Into Darkness," from Paramount Pictures (VIA) directed by J.J. Abrams, with Chris Pine, Zoe Saldana and others who’d appeared in the most recent prior version. (midnight opening after opening 2 days ago in IMAX, only)

FRIDAY 05/17
BAC/MER 2013 New York Municipal Investor Conference (NY)
18^th Annual North Central Vascular Symposium (Sioux Falls ND)
Mid-Atlantic Vascular Therapies Conference (Myrtle Beach SC thru 19^th)
GFI Group (GFIG) Investor Day (London 9am)
4^th Annual HomeAway (AWAY) Summit (Scottsdale, AZ thru 19^th)
Questar Corp (STR) Analyst Day-Chicago
Whole Foods (WFM) shareholders of record on close, today, eligible for dividend in form of 2:1 stock split to be distributed 5/29 and start trading 5/30
MOVIE OPENINGS: "Erased" was unreleased for a year, the existence erased, that of an ex-CIA agent marked for death. Don’t forget, Star Trek will have to compete with last week’s big opener, "The Great Gatsby" and new and repeat viewers of "Iron Man 3," from the week earlier. And if you didn’t know, from the movies opening that it’s summer, officially, last Friday’s volume traded in equities should have been an even bigger clue.

SATURDAY 05/18
Electrical Products Group 2013 Annual Spring Meeting (Longboat Key FL thru 22nd) presentations start on 20th
ASNR: Neuroradiology (San Diego thru 23^rd)  
DDW: Digestive Disease Week (Orlando thru 21st)
Walmart (WMT) becomes the exclusive pre-seller of tickets to see the June 13 opening day of the movie, "Man of Steel," the next (TWX) Warner Brothers Studios' "Superman" movie, which opens on June 13th. The deal will provide to the studio free advertising in WMT's more than 3,700 stores. Likewise, when the time comes that this newest movie is out on DVD & Blu-Ray, or through digital download, as pre-oopening ticket WMT purchasers will receive a code to pre-order the home media version of the movie. It, also, might help sell earlier iterations on DVD or Blu-Ray. WMT hopes the deal will bring in more shoppers for Blu-Ray & DVD's in its stores, and sell more "Man of Steel" related merchandise.. The move cost more than $200m to produce, and is breaking ground by selling opening and the first few days of tickets through a single operator, let alone through a retailer. WMT will selling tickets to the June 13 opening night, at 2,379 theaters, with the mass market opening not until 06/14. In logistics tangle, WMT will sell the tickets at prices set by the theaters showing the movie, in each area around a WMT store. So there'll be tickets sold for every price from $7 to $22, both stores referring to their collaboration as an experiment.
Preakness Stakes (2nd leg in Triple Crown @Pimlico Park)        EARLIER OUTLOOKS HERE

© Sandi Lynne 2013 Nothing contained in this commentary should be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. The opinions expressed are the author’s, alone, and should be just one factor in more complete due diligence.