Before the Open (Sep 29)

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Indonesia did better than 1%; China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan also did well. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently lean to the upside. The UK, Poland, South Africa, Hungary, the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia are doing well; Denmark, Finland, Kenya and Austria are down. Futures in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
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Podcast: with Chat With Traders
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The dollar is up a small amount. Oil is up 10 cents; copper is down. Gold and silver are up small amounts. Bonds are down.
Last day of the week and month. Barring a big sell-off, lots of stats trigger that point to Q4 continuing the uptrend…as if the market needed any help. I’ll talk about this over the weekend.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Louisiana-Pacific (LPX +0.07%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital Markets.
Altice (ATUS -3.05%) was initiated with a recommendation of ‘Buy’ at Redburn with a price target of $35.27.
Mastercard (MA +0.38%) was initiated with a recommendation of ‘Overweight’ at Cantor Fitzgerald with a 12-month target price of $165.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX +0.37%) was initiated with a recommendation of ‘Buy’ at BTIG LLC with a 12-month target price of $200.
WR Grace ({=GRA was initiated with a recommendation of ‘Buy’ at Loop Capital Markets with a 12-month target price of $81.
Tyson Foods ({=TSN rallied over 5% in after-hours trading after it raised guidance on its fiscal 2017 adjusted EPS to $5.20-$5.30 from a prior view of $4.95-$5.05, citing better-than-expected earnings in the beef segment.
Cabot Microelectronics ({=CCMP was initiated with a recommendation of ‘Buy’ at Loop Capital Markets with a 12-month target price of $94.
KB Home ({=KBH gained over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 revenue of $1.14 billion, above consensus of $1.11 billion.
Nexstar Media Group (NXST +1.06%) slid 1% in after-hours trading after a block of 641,000 shares of Nexstar was offered at $61 a share via Raymond James, a -1.93% discount to Thursday’s closing price.
Hilton Worldwide Holdings (HLT +0.36%) lost almost 1% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced a secondary offering of 14.61 million shares of its common stock.
Smart Global Holdings (SGH +4.90%) jumped almost 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 net sales of $223 million, better than consensus of $210.6 million.
Zynerba Pharmaceuticals (ZYNE +52.50%) rallied nearly 6% in after-hours trading after it was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Piper Jaffray with a target price of $16.
Marinus Pharmaceuticals (MRNS -4.77%) rose over 3% in after-hours trading after Bain Capital Life Sciences Fund reported a 15.9% passive stake in the company.
Aehr Test Systems (AEHR +11.04%) jumped over 15% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 revenue of $6.97 million, better than expectations of $6.75 million.
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Thursday’s Key Earnings
BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) +13.4% on record software sales.
Rite Aid (NYSE:RAD) -11% following Walgreens deal drama.
Tyson Foods (NYSE:TSN) +6% AH boosting earnings guidance.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Personal Income and Outlays
9:45 Chicago PMI
10:00 Consumer Sentiment
1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY