Before the Open (May 21)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific market leaned to the upside. China, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand posted gains; India, New Zealand and Indonesia posted losses. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently mostly up. The UK, Poland, France, the UAE, Finland, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Israel, Sweden and Russia are doing well; Sweden, Hungary, Italy and Austria are weak. Futures in the States point towards a relatively big gap up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
Overnight Stock Movers from barchart.com…
Knight-Swift Transportations Holdings (KNX +2.21%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel with a price target of $48.
Welltower (WELL +0.63%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Raymond James with a price target of $60.
Dillards (DDS +1.10%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Underperform’ at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch with a price target of $89.
Campbell Soup (CPB -12.37%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch with a price target of $31.
nLight (LASR -0.07%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at D.A. Davidson with a price target of $40.
Hostess Brands (TWNK -1.09%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Berenberg with a price target of $15.
The Janssen Pharmaceutical Company of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ +0.31%) said a Phase 3 study of its Erleada showed that treatment with the drug significantly cut the risk of prostate specific antigen progression in patients with non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
United Technologies (UTX +0.47%) agreed to sell Taylor Co., a business that specializes in ice-cream dispensing equipment, to Middleby Corp for $1 billion.
Editas Medicine (EDIT -8.24%) may move higher first thing this morning after a pre-clinical study showed the company’s gene therapy EDIT-101 was well tolerated with no adverse side-effects in treatment in patients with Leber Congenital Amaurosis type 10.
Rocket Pharmaceuticals (RCKT -0.15%) climbed 3% in after-hours trading after it reported data from its gene therapy RP-L102 for Fanconi Anemia showed continued improvement in engraftment among five patients in a Phase 1/2 trial.
Geron (GERN +4.44%) fell almost 3% in after-hours trading after it entered into an at market issuance sales agreement with B. Riley where it can sell shares of its common stock of up to $100 million from time to time.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
12:15 PM Fed’s Bostic Speech
2:15 PM Fed’s Harker Speech
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY