MORNING COFFEE

Financial Reform Gets Delayed. In a bipartisan effort the Senate voted against a key procedural motion which would have opened up the debate on financial reform legislation to the full Senate. Democrats will move to bring another procedural vote on the debate as soon as Wednesday, hoping to get the additional votes needed to get the motion approved. In the meantime, lawmakers are heading back to the negotiating table to try to reach a bipartisan deal. Currently Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not included in the reform. Many are questioning the reasoning behinds this since they both were a major cause of the housing collapse.

Greece Still a Concern. The cost of insuring Greek debt against default jumped to a new record yesterday and rising yields neared double digits. Worries about a Eurozone contagion are also growing, with some economists suggesting that Portugal and Spain could become the next Greece.

Upgrades

Whirlpool (WHR): JP Morgan raised their rating from Underweight to Neutral and placed a target price of $116.00 on the company.

Taubman Centers (TCO): UBS raised their rating from Sell to Neutral.

H & R Block (HRB): Oppenheimer raised their rating from Perform to Outperform and placed a target price of $22.00 on the company.

Downgrades

Accenture (ACN): Standpoint Research lowered their rating from Buy to Hold.

Baidu.com (BIDU): Credit Suisse lowered their rating from Neutral to Underperform.

Coverage Initiated

Oracle (ORCL): Citigroup initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $32.00.

Intl Game Tech (IGT): KeyBanc Capital Mkts initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $27.00.

Intel (INTC): Sterne Agee initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $28.00.

Earnings

BP (BP): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.30 beating estimates by +$0.05 on revenue of $73.1 billion. 

DuPont (DD): Reported Q1 EPS of $1.24 beating estimates by +$0.18 on revenue of $8.4 billion.

Tyco International (TYC): Reported Q2 EPS of $0.59 beating estimates by +$0.04 on revenue of $4.2 billion.

Boston Scientific (BSX): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.16 beating estimates by +$0.08 on revenue of $2 billion.

Texas Instruments (TXN): Reported Q1 EPS of $0.52 beating estimates by +$0.01 on revenue of $3.2 billion.

·         Futures: Dow -0.2%. S&P -0.4%. Nasdaq -0.2%. Crude -1.0% to $83.33. Gold -0.2% to $1152.20.

·         Asia: Nikkei +0.4% to 11213. Hang Seng -1.5% to 21262. Shanghai -2.1% to 2908. BSE -0.3% to 17691.

·         Europe: London -1.1% to 5688. Paris -1.6% to 3932. Frankfurt -0.8% to 6281.