Before the Open (Jan 3)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore rallied more than 1%; China, Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan and Malaysia also did well. Indonesia was weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently mostly up. France, Germany, the UAE, Finland, Russia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia are up the most; Poland, Turkey, South Africa and Israel are down.
The dollar is up. Bitcoin is up. Oil is up; copper is down. Gold and silver are flat. Bonds are up.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Aetna (AET +0.17%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Piper Jaffray with a 12-month target price of $207.
Wells Fargo (WFC +0.69%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Bernstein with a price target of $69.
Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS +2.61%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Wells Fargo Securities with a price target of $35.
American Express (AXP -0.37%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank with a price target of $118.
Expedia (EXPE +1.38%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch with a 12-month target price of $145.
Harley-Davidson (HOG +2.32%) fell 3% in pre-market trading after it was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Longbow Research.
Itron (ITRI +1.61%) was rated a ‘Strong Buy’ at Raymond James with a 2-month target price of $84.
Sempra Energy (SRE -1.47%) fell 2% in after-hours trading after it proposed $2.5 billion in public offerings of its common stock in connection with its acquisition of Energy Future Holdings.
Howard Hughes Corp (HHC +1.20%) slid over 3% in after-hours trading after Pershing Square Holdings announced a proposed sale of all 2,067,490 shares it holds of HHC common stock via JPMorgan Chase.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA +0.84%) lost nearly 1% in after-hours trading after it was rated a new ‘Underperform’ at Leering Partners LLC with a 12-month target price of $15.
Atara Biotherapeutics (ATRA unch) lost nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced an underwritten public offering of $100 million in shares of its common stock.
MoneyGram International (MGI +0.99%) slumped 8% in after-hours trading after it dropped its merger plan with China’s Ant Financial Services when it was unable to win approval from the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment.
Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals (TTPH +2.70%) rose 5% in after-hours trading after it submitted its new drug application to the FDA for intravenous eravacycline for treatment of intra-abdominal infections.
Today’s Economic Calendar
Auto Sales
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index
10:00 Construction Spending
2:00 PM FOMC minutes
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY