Before the Open (Dec 19)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Singapore dropped the most. Europe currently leans to the downside. Greece is down more than 2%; Austria is also weak. Spain and Portugal are doing well. Futures in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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The dollar is up slightly. Oil and copper are down. Gold is up; silver is down. Bonds are down.
As is typically the case I don’t have anything to add to the comments made in LB Weekly, published over the weekend. In it I stated the market was doing well overall and I expected more new highs to be made in 2017, but at some point in the next couple week there is likely to be a pullback because several breadth indicators have started to diverge from the price action.
This is a full week of trading, but things will certainly slow down Thursday and Friday.
Next week is a black hole, where everyone is focused elsewhere. If companies want to announce things they hope nobody pays attention to, next week will be the time to do it.
I’m in “don’t force trades” mode right now. The market has been on an incredible run. It can’t last forever, and the risk/rewards aren’t great right now. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY -0.05%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Jeffries with a price target of $69.
ETrade (ETFC -2.04%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey with a price target of $40.
Costco (COST +0.19%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL -2.76%) dropped over 4% in pre-market trading after it was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Berenberg.
Ambac Financial Group (AMBC +0.15%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at MKM Partners.
BorgWarner (BWA +0.71%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ form ‘Outperform’ at Wells Fargo Securities.
United Technologies (UTX +0.36%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse with a 12-month target price of $125.
Lowe’s (LOW -0.96%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Citigroup.
Gulfport Energy (GPOR -5.65%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Guggenheim Securities with a 12-month target price of $30.
Rsp Permian (RSPP +1.10%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Guggenheim Securities with a 12-month target price of $55.
Continental Resources (CLR -0.63%) was rated new ‘Market Perform’ at FBR Capital Markets with a 12-month target price of $56.
Today’s Economic Calendar
9:45 PMI Services Index Flash
1:30 PM Janet Yellen speech
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers