Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan each dropped more than 1%; New Zealand posted a gain. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently lean to the downside. Germany, Finland, Russia, Italy and Portugal are down the most; Turkey is up. Futures in the States point towards a slight down open for the cash market.
The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Ciena (CIEN +0.67%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch with a 12-month target price of $28.
Everest Re (RE -0.72%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Underperform’ at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
Norfolk Southern (NSC +0.60%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Hold’ at Loop Capital Markets with a price target of $120.
Western Digital (WDC -0.14%) was downgraded to ‘Equal-Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
Allergan (AGN -0.74%) was resumed with an ‘Outperform’ at Leerink Partners LLC with a 12-month target price of $237.
Buffalo Wild Wings (BWLD -0.07%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS, citing valuation.
Square (SQ +0.10%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at BTIG LLC with a 12-month target price of $30.
Eminence Capital reported that it raised its passive stake in Wendy’s (WEN -0.65%) to 5.2% from 3.68%.
Macy’s (M +2.13%) slipped almost 1% in after-hours trading after a glitch in the company’s credit-card processing Black Friday spurred long lines which prompted some customers to abandon purchases due to the long wait times.
Johnson Controls International Plc (JCI +0.33%) may move higher this morning after vice president of the company, William Jackson, filed a Form 4 with the SEC that he purchased 20,000 shares of JCI at an average price of $36 on Nov 21.
Broadfin Capital reported that it reduced its stake in Recro Pharma (REPH unch) to 15.31% from 16.21%.
Marathon Patent Group (MARA +172.94%) jumped 14% in after-hours trading on top of a 173% surge Friday after it reported a Q3 operating loss of -$3.9 million versus an operating loss of -$10.7 million for Q3 of 2016.
Today’s Economic Calendar
10:00 New Home Sales
10:30 Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey
11:30 Results of $13B, 2-Year Note Auction
1:00 PM Results of $34B, 5-Year Note Auction
7:00 PM Fed’s Dudley: “US Economy: 10 Years after the Crisis”
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY