Before the Open (Aug 14)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan and Taiwan were weak, but China, Hong Kong, South Korea, India ad Singapore did well. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are mostly up. France, Turkey, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Kenya, Spain, Italy, Israel, Austria and the Czech Republic are leading the way. Futures in the States point towards a big gap up open for the cash market.
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eBook: High Probability Setups for Stocks and Options
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
I don’t need to rehash charts from over the weekend that pointed to a near-term bounce. Assuming one plays out after the opening gap up, the indicators will tell us if the move has legs or is likely to get sold into.
I continue to like the market overall and believe the bulls deserve the benefit of the doubt. The market has done too well for too long to think it will just turn on a dime and fall apart.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
International Paper (IP +0.73%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at D.A. Davidson.
Orbital ATK (OA +0.70%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Argus Research with a price target of $120.
Weyerhaeuser (WY +0.31%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at BMO Capital Markets.
Masimo (MASI +1.88%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at BTIG with a price target of $100.
Temper Sealy (TPX +1.55%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Piper Jaffray with a price target of $80.
CNO Financial Group (CNO -1.66%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equalweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
CenterPoint Energy (CNP -1.06%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at Credit Suisse.
Pure Storage (PSTG +1.04%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Maxim.
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG +1.38%) gained 1% in after-hours trading after its board approved a 3-for-1 stock split for each shareholder as of September 29. Trading will start on a split-adjusted basis on October 6.
Lockheed Martin (LMT +0.16%) was awarded an $8 billion-dollar contract from the U.S. Department of Defense for Special Operations Forces Global Logistics Support Services.
Fly Leasing Ltd. (FLY +0.99%) filed to sell a $1 billion shelf of mixed securities.
Today’s Economic Calendar
none
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY