Before the Open (Jun 20)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed up across-the-board. Japan rallied 2.3%; Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and South Korea gained more than 1%. Europe is currently posting big, across-the-board gains. London, Germany, France and the Netherlands are up more than 3%; Austria, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, Turkey, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Portugal are up more than 2%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap up 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 US dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
Last week was FOMC week; this week is Brexit vote week. Polls in Great Britain this weekend suggest the country is much more likely to vote “stay.” This has given markets across the world a big boost. I’m not sure the markets care if Britain leave of not, but the uncertainty introduced by a “leave” vote would cause everyone to stop and gauge the fallout before putting more money to work.
My stance for the last week or so has been that I like the market long term and think higher prices will come eventually, but in the near term it’s a coin flip and you’d be foolish to have huge exposure heading into the vote.
Last week the SPX fell 4 of 5 days and posted its biggest loss since April. At today’s open, the entire loss will be recaptured.
Oil posted a big turnaround candle Friday and today is up another buck. It’s only 50 cents from the $50 level.
Otherwise I don’t have anything to add to the comments made in the LB Weekly posted over the weekend. This week is all about the Brexit vote on Thursday – a much much much more important vote than the FOMC interest rate decisions. Right now polls say “stay.” They can of course change, but unless the poll data is massively wrong, it looks like voters will accept the drawbacks of EU membership in exchange for the benefits rather than vote to leave.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Corning (GLW +0.90%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Citigroup with a price target of $23.
Yelp (YELP +0.56%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Deutsche Bank.
Catalent (CTLT -3.29%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
Barrick Gold (ABX +0.25%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Hold’ at Mackie Research.
Symantec (SYMC +0.96%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Sell’ at UBS with a 12-month price target of $24.
Expedia (EXPE -0.20%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Atlantic Equities.
Reata Pharmaceuticals (RETA unch) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at Cowen.
Credit Acceptance Corp. (CACC -1.48%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell’ at Janney Montgomery.
Union Pacific (UNP +0.56%) was downgraded to ‘Sector Perform’ from ‘Sector Outperform’ at Scotia Capital.
Charges that FedEx (FDX +0.23%) intentionally shipped illegal online prescriptions were thrown out of court at the request of federal prosecutors.
Hologic (HOLX +0.33%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading after the FDA granted emergency use authorization for the company’s new diagnostic assay for Zika virus infection.
Concordia Healthcare (CXRX -1.29%) rose 2% in after-hours trading after it settled a previously disclosed arbitration proceeding with a former financial adviser for $12.5 million. The adviser had claimed he was owed $38.3 million plus accrued interest.
Today’s Economic Calendar
1:00 PM Results of $26B, 2-Year Note Auction

Today’s Earnings here
Other
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers

4 thoughts on “Before the Open (Jun 20)

  1. Excitement Brexit is a hoax which is distorting traders today. Playing the seasonal patterns for summer ‘16: June/Aug is likely up, Sept down to a bottom in OCT which is 89% of the time a buy into April ‘17. I am playing my dividends and SDY and a few bonds. Am I comfortable? NO, but its my portfolio and I am not B.Brinker. Oh yes, 5 % stops are all I lean on. I know: go away. Bye.

  2. the criminal hoax about Britexit is that it wont be allow to happen by USA CRIMINALS [GOVT] as it would destroy usa hold over NATO
    anyone is allowed to vote and the vote will be rigged or if passed never enacted
    it would be best for england and europe as it would make europe beuracrates pull their fingers out also possible face the sack
    SO MUCH FOR DEMOCRACY–THEIR NEVER WAS ANY
    mean while the volitility is great

  3. as I live in uk looks like staying in and getting ready for a huge rally in FTSE over the next few days maybe a 1000 points looking a the weekly ftse chart a nice invert h & s setting up. to poss. around 7200 .

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