MORNING COFFEE

Market Focused On Jobs Report.  Stock futures are higher this morning ahead of the Labor Departments Job report which is due to be released at 8:30 ET. Economists are expecting the government to report those 100,000 nonfarm payrolls were created in July.  Nonfarm private payrolls are expected to come in at 105,000.  Both would be an increase over the prior months 80,000 and 84,000 respectively. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at a very high 8.2%.  The real unemployment rate last month was 15.5% with some areas of the country like California reporting a real unemployment rate of over 20%.

Upgrades

Cigna (CI): BMO Capital raised their rating from Market Perform to Outperform and placed a target price of $55.00 on the company.

Downgrades

Nordstrom (JWN): Robert W. Baird lowered their rating from Outperform to Neutral and lowered their target price from $62.00 to $58.00.

Jack in the Box (JACK): Lazard Capital lowered their rating from Buy to Neutral.

Allstate (ALL): UBS lowered their rating from Buy to Neutral and placed a target price of $38.80 on the company.

Becton Dickinson (BDX): CLSA lowered their rating from Outperform to Underperform and lowered their target price from $86.00 to $79.00.

Nokia (NOK): Goldman Sachs lowered their rating from Neutral to Sell.

Coverage Initiated

Triumph Group (TGI): Imperial Capital initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and target price of $77.00.

Earning Reports

Agrium (AGU): Reported EPS of $5.47 beating estimates by +$0.13.

American Intl Group (AIG): Reported EPS of $1.06 beating estimates by +$0.46.

Blue Nile (NILE): Reported EPS of $0.11 beating estimates by +$0.04.

Dolby Labs (DLB): Reported EPS of $0.57 missing estimates by -$0.01.

Fluor (FLR): Reported EPS of $0.95 beating estimates by +$0.03.

Kraft Foods (KFT): Reported EPS of $0.68 beating estimates by +$0.02.

Synaptics (SYNA): Reported EPS of $0.54 beating estimates by +$0.02.

Markets: 
Futures at 6:47: Dow +0.72%. S&P +0.83. Nasdaq +0.86%. Crude +1.24% to $88.24. Gold +0.49% to $1598.50.

Europe: London +1.36%. Paris +2.07%. Frankfurt -2.38%. 

Asia: Japan -1.13%. Hong Kong -0.12%. China +1.02%. India -0.15%.