Before the Open (Apr 5)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. China and Taiwan rallied more than 1%; Hong Kong and Indonesia also did well. Europe is currently mostly up. Russia and Hungary are up more than 1%; Austria, Norway, Spain and Poland are also doing well. Finland is down. Futures in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down a small amount. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
The indexes remain mostly range bound and very uninteresting overall. There are pockets of strength, but we’re getting more mixed signals than anything.
Oil stocks, which I talked about last week, are doing well. They’re the best place to be right now.
Big-cap tech are doing well too – lots of new highs there.
But overall there’s a lot of chopping and churning and a lack direction.
Don’t force trades right now.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Panera Bread (PNRA -3.05%) jumped 13% in pre-market trading after JAB Holding said it will acquire Panera for about $7.5 billion.
Exelon (EXC +0.89%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at Wells Fargo.
Wynn Resorts Ltd (WYNN +0.34%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Argus with a price target of $135.
Tenet Healthcare (THC -2.52%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank with a price target of $28.
Citigroup (C unch) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods with a price target of $69.
Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC -0.52%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods with a price target of $63.
A Schulman (SHLM -0.33%) rallied over % in after-hours trading after it said it sees full-year revenue of $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion, above consensus of $2.44 billion.
Sygenta AG (SYT +0.35%) rose nearly 1% in after-hours trading after China National Chemical Corp. won U.S. antitrust approval for its $43 billion takeover of Sygenta.
New Relic (NEWR +0.30%) gained almost 2% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q4 revenue of $73 million-$73.1 million, above a February 7 estimate of $71.3 million.
Tenet Healthcare (THC -2.52%) gained nearly 1% in after-hour trading after it was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank with a price target of $28.
Adecoagro (AGRO unch) slipped 3% in after-hours trading after a block of 9 million shares was offered via Morgan Stanley at $11.20 to $11.30.
Guidance Software (GUID +0.34%) was rated new ‘Overweight’ at Piper Jaffray with a 12-month price target of $8.50.
Today’s Economic Calendar
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:15 ADP Jobs Report
8:30 Gallup U.S. Job Creation Index
9:45 PMI Services Index
10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC minutes
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY