Before the Open (Dec 30)

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Hong Kong and India rallied about 1%; Australia was weak. Europe is currently mostly up. Greece, Russia, France and Italy are doing the best. Futures in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil is flat; copper is up. Gold and silver are flat. Bonds are flat.
Last trading day of 2016. The S&P is up 10%…the Russell 2000 20%…the Dow is somewhere in the middle of those two. The Dow couldn’t quite make it to 20K, and the Nas 100 could make it to 5K. Other than giving the media something to obsess about, those are meaningless levels that are made more meaningful because things do become self-fulfilling prophecies on Wall Street.
I don’t expect any fireworks today, so I highly doubt we get much movement in either direction. The indexes should remain in their ranges and start next year a stone’s throw from across-the-board all-time-highs.
2016 was a year of overcoming big obstacles. 2017 will be a continuation of this. Higher rates. A strong dollar. A new president. The market is doing great, but I don’t think we’ll be able to sit back and just hold positions. Money will rotate around like it always does; our job will be to look beneath the surface and find those mini bull markets. The S&P is up 10% right now, but there have been many groups that have gone on 50% runs. Some lasted a month or two; others lasted 6 months. There’s a bull market somewhere, and we’ll find them and ride them.
Happy New Year. 2016 provided many great opportunities. I’m encouraged 2017 will be just as good.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Syndax Pharmaceuticals (SNDX -3.49%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at BTIG with a price target of $25.
Yandex (YNDX +0.59%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at Credit Suisse with a price target of $26.
Cempra (CEMP -57.38%) was upgraded to ‘Equalweight’ from ‘Underweight’ at Morgan Stanley with a 12-month target price of $3.
Gulfport Energy (GPOR -0.77%) CFO Aaron Gaydosik resigned effective January 4 and will be replaced by Keri Crowell.
Mylan NV (MYL +0.46%) rose 2% in after-hours trading after it said it launched a generic version of Janssen’s Concerta tablets.
Today’s Economic Calendar
9:45 Chicago PMI
1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers