Before the Open (Feb 20)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the downside. China and Taiwan did well, but Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently leans to the downside. Turkey, Spain and Sweden are doing well. The UAE, Greece, South Africa, Hungary, Israel and the Czech Republic are down. Futures in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
The dollar is up. Bitcoin is up. Oil is up; copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
I’ll get caught up on email today. I was skiing all weekend. Went to pack the car on our last day and was greeted by this little guy. Fun stuff. Only in CO.

Stock headlines from barchart.com…
WalMart (WMT +1.50%) fell nearly 3% in pre-market trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of $1.33, below consensus of $1.37, and said it sees fiscal 2019 EPS of $4.75-$5.00, weaker than consensus of $5.13.
Snap (SNAP +3.39%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup with a target price of $14.
Wingstop (WING +1.06%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Baird.
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE -1.13%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase with a price target of $83.
Kraft Heinz (KHC -2.63%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at DZ Bank AG with a price target of $79.
Dow Jones reported that Qualcomm may raise its bid for NXP Semiconductors (NXPI +1.35%) to $127.50 a share.
Home Depot (HD +0.92%) gained +0.3% in pre-market trading after it reported Q4 U.S. comparable sales increased +7.2%, better than expectations of +6.2%.
CyberArk Software (CYBR -1.94%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS with a price target of $58.
United Parcel Service (UPS -1.76%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Edward Jones.
Opexa Therapeutics (ACER +2.72%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at William Blair.
Rite Aid (RAD +2.40%) surged 28% in pre-market trading after the WSJ reported Albertsons plans to buy the rest of the company that is not being sold to Walgreens Boots Alliance.
Today’s Economic Calendar
1:00 PM Results of $28B, 2-Year Note Auction
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY

4 thoughts on “Before the Open (Feb 20)”

  3. Jeremy Siegel is a great researcher. If we are stuck in a low-interest rate world, investors will want dividend-paying stocks, Siegel recently said. He presented data showing that cash dividends have outpaced the CPI during high and low inflation periods. He said that cash dividends are currently the strongest since the last financial crisis. He could have said most indexes have historically out run bonds and averaged 6+% over post WW time periods. You know what to do!!!

  4. dividend stocks/the debt crisis
    company’s that borrow money to pay dividends/buy back are not worth it
    look at the balance sheets
    a healthy company has good cash flow/profits –little debt

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