Before the Open (Nov 21)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the downside. India dropped more than 1%; Singapore, Indonesia and South Korea were also weak. Japan and China did well. Europe is currently mostly up. France, the UK, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Greece and Poland are doing well; Switzerland is weak. Futures in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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LB Weekly – the indexes, the breadth indicators, a look at the big picture
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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up.
As is typically the case on a Monday morning, I don’t have anything to add to the weekly report published over the weekend.
In it I concluded the market is in good shape and odds favor a continuation of the uptrend…but I wanted one more leg up to confirm what has taken place since the election. The first move off a depressed level is the easy move, especially in the situation that just took place. Lots of money had moved to the sidelines to avoid risk heading into the election.
The first move is just short covering and sideline money being put to work. To prove the rally is sustainable, a leg up is needed at a later date – a date that is far enough away from the bottom to suggest it wasn’t just emotional buying taking place, but instead real buying from institutions.
This is what I’m looking for now. A second leg up. Unfortunately we’re likely to have a quiet, shortened week ahead of us. The market is closed Thursday, and Friday is a half day. Wednesday will be dead.
Ideally the market would do nothing this week and then bust out next week. I’d rather not get a low-volume continuation this week. We’ll see. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Chesapeake Energy (CHK +0.85%) and Murphy Oil (MUR +1.42%) are both up over 4% in pre-market trading as crude oil prices jumped to a 2-1/2 week high in overnight trade.
Time Warner (TWX +0.73%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at FBR Capital Markets with a price target of $104.
U.S. Steel (X -2.06%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Rosenblatt with a price target of $29.
Air Products (APD -0.03%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Argus Research with a price target of $159.
First Interstate BancSystem (FIBK -6.12%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Sandler O’Neill with a 12-month price target of $41.
Fossil (FOSL -1.49%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underweight’ at Piper Jaffray with a 12-month price target of $32.
3M (MMM +0.11%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs with a target price of $159.
Foot Locker (FL +0.60%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at Piper Jaffray with a 12-month target price of $72.
Rockwell Automation (ROK -0.57%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Vertical.
Facebook (FB -0.65%) gained 1% in after-hours trading after it said it will buy back up to $6 billion of Class A shares.
CONSOL Energy (CNX +1.93%) rose 1%% in after-hours trading after it was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal-Weight’ at Morgan Stanley with a price target of $30.
Poinststate Capital reported a 9.99% passive stake in Comstock Resources (CRK +4.90%) , making it the second-largest holder.
Announcements and such here
Today’s Earnings here
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:00 Stanley Fischer
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers