Before the Open (Jan 4)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific closed mostly up. Japan rallied more than 3%; China, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand also did well. South Korea was weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently doing very well. Italy, Austria and Poland are up more than 2%; Spain, Belgium, Portugal, the Czech Republic, France, Germany and Russia are up more than 1%. South Africa is weak. Futures in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
The dollar is down. Bitcoin is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Mastercard (MA +1.26%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Mizuho Securities USA with a price target of $175.
CVS Health Corp (CVS -0.44%) was
upgraded to ‘Strong Buy’ from ‘Outperform’ at Raymond James with a 12-month target price of $90.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD +5.19%) gained almost 3% in after-hours trading after it said it sees “near zero risk” to its chips related to Intel’s problem.
Intel (INTC -3.39%) fell nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it said an exploit in its chips allows access to privileged information and a fix will take time to deploy.
Visteon (VC +1.69%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Guggenheim Securities with a 12-month target price of $140.
Marathon Oil (MRO +1.67%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch with a price target of $21.
Zumiez (ZUMZ +2.50%) rallied 13% in after-hours trading after it reported Dec comparable sales rose +7.9%, better than expectations of +4.1%, and then boosted its Q4 EPS forecast to 88 cents-90 cents, higher than consensus of 80 cents.
Tesla (TSLA -1.02%) lost nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it pushed back its goal to assemble 5,000 Model 3s cars by June, three months longer than previous expectations of 5,000 cars assembled by March.
Qiagen (QGEN +1.82%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at Evercore ISI with a 12-month target price of $35.
Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE -0.47%) fell 3% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced an underwritten public offering of 6.0 million shares of common stock.
Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA -1.39%) climbed 6% in after-hours trading after it said it will begin a trial in the first half of 2018 with Mylan for its M710 injection in patients with diabetic macular edema.
Seaspan (SSW -0.70%) rose almost 2% in after-hours trading after Fairfax Financial Holdings said it will invest $250 million is Seaspan in exchange for unsecured debentures and Class A common share purchase warrants.
Gener8 Maritime (GNRT +1.21%) fell 4% in after-hours trading after it was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS.
Fang Holdings Ltd (SFUN -3.00%) slid nearly 4% in after-hours trading after a block of 15.5 million shares of Fang were offered at $4.90-$5.10 via Morgan Stanley.
Rite Aid (RAD -0.94%) dropped nearly 10% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 revenue of $5.35 billion, below consensus of $7.64 billion.
Today’s Economic Calendar
Chain Store Sales
7:30 Challenger Job-Cut Report
8:15 ADP Jobs Report
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:45 PMI Services Index
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
11:00 EIA Petroleum Inventories
1:30 PM Fed’s Bullard: U.S. Monetary and Economic Policy
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet

Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered