Before the Open (Jun 14)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Happy Fed Day.
The Asian/Pacific market leaned to the upside. China and Taiwan closed down; New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines did well. Europe is currently mostly up. France, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands and Belgium are up. Futures in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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My podcast – with Chat With Traders
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The dollar is up. Oil is down; copper is up. Gold and silver are mixed and little changed. Bonds are up.
Fed day today. Odds heavily favor the Fed raising rates 25 basis points. This isn’t the Greenspan days, where people would debate for weeks what the Fed would do. Nowadays the Fed is very transparent; they don’t want any surprises. They forecast everything in advance, so no one is surprised. In fact they’re so transparent with what they do, this can’t even be considered a major event.
The Dow and mid caps hit new highs yesterday. The other indexes did well too. Most of the big cap tech stocks posted gains, but while some opened at their lows and closed at their highs, others opened at their highs and closed in the middle of their ranges. The group did not move together.
Overall the market continues to do just fine.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Restaurant Brands International (QSR +0.68%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Oppenheimer.
Infinera (INFN +1.20%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at MKM Partners with a price target of $14.
Starbucks (SBUX -0.60%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Wedbush.
HMS Holdings (HMSY +0.31%) was initiated with an ‘Overweight’ rating at Cantor Fitzgerald with a 12-month target price of $23.
Janus Henderson Group PLC (JHG +1.39%) was initiated with an ‘Overweight’ rating at Morgan Stanley.
Alexion Pharmaceuticals (ALXN +1.05%) rose 4% in after-hours trading after it announced that Biogen CFO Paul Clancy will be the new CFO at Alexion effective July 31. Biogen (BIIB -0.26%) dropped over 2% in after-hours trading on the news.
Loxo Oncology (LOXO -3.66%) lost over 2% in after-hours trading after it announced that it intends to offer shares of its common stock in an underwritten public offering, although no size was given.
H&R Block (HRB +2.08%) jumped over 11% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS from continuing operations of $3.76, better than consensus of $3.53.
FTD Cos (FTD -3.51%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at DA Davidson with a 12-month target price of $23.
Gladstone Investment Corp (GAIN +0.33%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at Wedbush with a 12-month target price of $10.
Sequans Communications SA (SQNS unch) dropped over 5% in after-hours trading after it announced that it intends to offer newly issued American Depositary Shares (ADSs) representing ordinary shares in an underwritten public offering, although no size was given.
Today’s Economic Calendar
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:30 Consumer Price Index
8:30 Retail Sales
10:00 Business Inventories
10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
2:00 PM FOMC Announcement
2:00 PM FOMC Forecast
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY