Before the Open (Mar 16)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed up across-the-board. Hong Kong rallied more than 2%; Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan did better than 1%; Singapore, China and South Korea also did well. Europe is currently mostly up. Austria, Hungary, Spain, Italy and Greece are up more than 1%; the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, Norway, Poland and Turkey are also doing well. Futures in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down.
The Fed raised rates but were not exactly overly hawkish in their comments. They’re optimistic, but it didn’t seem like 2-3 more hikes this year was a done deal. Wall Street rallied in a big way on big volume.
The dollar fell hard…financials lagged, but everything else posted solid gains. Gold & silver did great…so did oil. Both groups have been beaten down. Utilities, REITs and other dividend-paying stocks did well. The small caps led. It was a change in character relative to what we’ve become accustomed to.
The AD line, which had been weak, posted one of its biggest days in months.
We knew going in that although the Fed was likely to do exactly what everyone was expecting, the announcement still had the ability to act as an inflection point. So far it has, but we need some follow through.
Long term bias remains up. Short term is no longer “under pressure” and is very close to resuming too.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Jabil Circuit (JBL +1.05%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Needham & Co with a 12-month target price of $30.
Oracle (ORCL +0.61%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 69 cents, better than consensus of 62 cents.
Zoetis (ZTS +1.61%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Craig Hallum with a 12-month target price of $65.
Guess? (GES +1.07%) tumbled 12% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 41 cents, weaker than consensus of 44 cents, and said it sees full year EPS of 28 cents-40 cents, well below consensus of 64 cents.
Williams-Sonoma (WSM +1.26%) gained almost 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of $1.55, better than consensus of $1.51.
Engaged Capital said it increased its stake in Rent-A-Center (RCII +2.29%) to 13.7% from 9.9%.
GoPro (GPRO +1.52%) rallied 7% in after-hours trading after it said it cut an additional 270 jobs as part of its restructuring plan and said it sees Q1 revenue at the upper end of a Feb 2 forecast of $190 million-$210 million.
Editas Medicine (EDIT -5.38%) lost nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it announced that it intends to offer 4 million shares of its common stock in an underwritten public offering.
Alarm.com Holdings (ALRM +1.12%) jumped 8% in after-hours trading after it forecast 2017 total revenue of $322 million-$325.5 million, above consensus of $300.6 million.
Penumbra (PEN +0.06%) dropped 4% in after-hours trading after it announced it launched an offering of 1.3 million shares of its common stock.
Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT +4.26%) rose nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it was rated new ‘Overweight’ at Cantor Fitzgerald with a price target of $61.
magicJack VocalTec Ltd (CALL +10.20%) gained 1% in after-hours trading after it said it was “exploring options” for the company.
Conatus Pharmaceuticals (CNAT +6.05%) dropped over 6% in after-hours trading after it reported a Q4 loss of -35 cents a share, wider than consensus of -32 cents.
Arotech (ARTX +3.80%) plunged 17% in after-hours trading after it said it sees 2017 adjusted EPS of 20 cents-24 cents, weaker than consensus of 28 cents.
Wedneday’s Key Earnings
Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) +6.5% on cloud performance.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Housing Starts
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 Philly Fed Business Outlook
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY