Before the Open (Dec 18)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Japan and the Philippines gained more than 1%: India and Australia also did well. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently mostly up. Austria is up more than 2%; France, Poland, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Saudi Arabia are up more than 1%. Futures in the States point towards a relatively big gap up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil is up; copper is down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Discover Financial Services (DFS +1.25%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
Costco Wholesale (COST +3.32%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital Markets with a price target of $215.
Capital One Financial (COF +2.39%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.
Phillips 66 Partners (PSX +0.37%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
VMware (VMW +2.10%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Sector Weight’ at KeyBanc Capital Markets with a 12-month target price of $142.
Netgear (NTGR +2.41%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Raymond James with a 12-month target price of $62.
Twitter (TWTR -1.55%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase with a price target of $27.
Kellogg (K -0.09%) announced after the close Friday that its board has authorized a buyback of up to $1.5 billion in company stock.
TD Ameritrade (AMTD +2.16%) gained almost 3% in after-hours trading after it said it will offer Cboe Bitcoin futures on Monday.
Snyder’s-Lance (LNCE +5.34%) rose 5% in after-hours trading after CNBC reported that Campbell Soup is in advanced talks to acquire the company.
Akamai Technologies (AKAM +1.76%) jumped over 13% in after-hours trading after holder Elliot Associates reported a 6.5% stake in the company and said it seeks talks with management as it believes the shares are undervalued.
Sunrun (RUN +3.41%) fell 4% in after-hours trading after it filed to sell $328.7 million of mixed securities.
Aratana Therapeutics (PETX +2.69%) dropped 9% in after-hours trading after it said its AT-016 did not achieve efficacy success in a study of Osteoarthritis on dogs.
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Today’s Economic Calendar
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2 thoughts on “Before the Open (Dec 18)”

  1. No way TO say for sure, but the US and EU Governments ARE apparently leading a ” melt up ” in the global markets which could be spectacular on the way up, and a serious set back when things become unmanageable. You can ride the move up, then move out before things be come too good to last. How do I know? I do not know, just a hunch, but keep some power dry.

  2. maybe today is the end of the exhaustion–hope so its already too big to prevent a crash
    the reason for the crash may not be evident yet ,until wave 3 down like the leheeman crash
    probably a debt implosion of europe ,then japan followed by usa
    day traders dont trade of the overall trend only the intraday trend,but the overall trend does help

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