Before the Open (Jul 17)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the Philippines posted gains; China dropped more than 1%. Europe, Africa and the Middle East lean to the upside but overall are little changed. Poland, Turkey, Finland, Norway and Austria are up; Russia and Sweden are down. Futures in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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The dollar is flat. Oil is down a small amount; copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up.
I don’t have anything to add to comments made in LB Weekly, published over the weekend. The Dow and S&P are at new highs; the other indexes are pretty close. The trend is up; the market is healthy and in good shape. Bias remains to the upside.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
BlackRock (BLK +0.11%) fell -0.3% in pre-market trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $5.24, below consensus of $5.38.
Fiserv (FISV +0.28%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ form ‘Neutral’ at Guggenheim with a price target of $136.
CIT Group (CIT -0.04%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal-Weight’ at Stephens with a price target of $60.
Greenbrier (GBX -0.83%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel with a price target of $51.
Booz Allen Hamilton Holding (BAH -0.06%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Jeffries.
NuStar Energy LP (NS +2.08%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at Wells Fargo Securities.
United Rentals (URI +2.15%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Sector Perform’ at RBC Capital Markets.
Science Applications International (SAIC +0.18%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Jeffries.
Targa Resources (TRGP +1.51%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ with a price target of $54 at Wells Fargo Securities.
Sprint (S +4.27%) rose nearly 1% in after-hours trading and added to its 4% gain during Friday’s session, after Chairman Masayoshi Son was said to have held talks with billionaire investors Warren Buffet and John Malone about investing in the company.
NetApp (NTAP +5.46%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading, and added to the 5.5% increase during Friday’s session to a 3-year high, after the stock was added to the ‘Conviction Buy’ list at Goldman Sachs.
Peregrine Pharmaceuticals (PPHM +3.14%) sank nearly 15% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $17.9 million versus $18.8 million y/y, and said fiscal 2018 revenue should be similar to fiscal 2017 due to recent changes in the forecast of a large customer and a delayed regulatory filing for another customer.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY