Dividend.com: Midday Playbook

Click here to take a look at TheStreet.com's calendar for ex-dividend dates.

We've gotten off to a slow start to the trading week, as the market averages have dripped lower into the afternoon hours. There are some key stock moves underway, so let's focus on those.

Bullish

Earnings/Story Winners: Lorillard(LO Quote), Enterprise Products(EPD Quote) and Agilent Technologies(A Quote) are this morning's early winners.

Bucyrus International(BUCY Quote) is seeing a good pop from two analyst upgrades.

Other Notable Winners: Bank of America(BAC Quote) and MasterCard(MA Quote) are jumping higher.

Bearish

Earnings Losers: Cal-Maine Foods(CALM Quote), Verizon(VZ Quote), Corning(GLW Quote), Aetna(AET Quote) and RadioShack(RSH Quote) are seeing the biggest declines from their earnings results today.

Analyst Downgrades: Autodesk(ADSK Quote), Exelon Corp(EXC Quote) and Boeing(BA Quote) are down the most on this morning's analyst actions.

China Plays: Traders are disappointed with earnings from Sohu.com(SOHU Quote), and Changeyou.com(CYOU Quote). It is spreading to other China-based plays like Shanda Interactive(SNDA Quote).

Other Notable Names Lower: Coach(COH Quote), Google(GOOG Quote), and Microsoft(MSFT Quote) are pulling back.

Oil(USO Quote) and Gold(GLD Quote) prices continue to maintain slight gains so far. Treasuries(TLT Quote) are off once again, despite the early pullback in the market averages.

What's the Trade?

Some traders that use trailing stops on names I mentioned earlier may have seen some positions get closed out by now. I view this as a positive sign, and a good way to practice your discipline as a trader. As for any other plays today, I am not seeing anything that presents a good risk/reward feel at this point. The ultrashorts are not doing much, and so there are no entry points to be had there. Since the market trend has clearly been up, pushing up trailing stops in winning positions has been the regular practice traders that have been positioned properly. Patience is a key here, as we need to see the markets present us with some plays (and they always do).