Before the Open (Oct 8)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. China dropped more than 3%; Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore and Thailand were also weak. Indonesia posted a gain. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently mostly down. Denmark, Poland, France, Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Austria are weak; Turkey is up. Futures in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are mixed.
Overnight Stock Movers from barchart.com…
iRobot (IRBT +0.88%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at Piper Jaffray with a price target of $90.
Conagra Brands (CAG +0.15%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at UBS with a price target of $40.
Penumbra (PEN -1.59%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at RBC Capital Markets with a price target of $174.
General Electric (GE +4.11%) rose 2% in pre-market trading after it was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal weight’ at Barclays with a price target of $20.
Movado (MOV +1.21%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Cowen with a price target of $50.
Assembly Biosciences (ASMB -4.58%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at B Riley FBR with a price target of $42.
Lockheed Martin (LMT -0.64%) was awarded a $390.8 million contract from the U.S. Air Force for Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile production for 360 extended range missiles, 3 foreign military sales separation text vehicles, one FMS flight test vehicle-live fire and tooling and test equipment.
Merck (MRK -0.27%) may move higher initially this morning after the FDA approved an expanded use of Merck’s Gardasil 9 vaccine to include men and women aged 27 through 45 years old to prevent certain cancers and diseases caused by the 9 HPV types covered by the vaccine.
Ford Motor (F -0.33%) may move higher initially this morning after the Detroit Free Press reported after the close Friday that Ford plans to cut an unidentified number of jobs, flatten business operations, and create a “more efficient company.”
Kala Pharmaceuticals (KALA -2.21%) jumped 8% in after-hours trading after RA Capital disclosed it had purchased 2.42 million shares of KALA on Oct 3 and now becomes the largest shareholder with a 14% stake in the company.
Today’s Economic Calendar
12:30 PM TD Ameritrade IMX
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings from Morningstar
this week’s Economic Numbers/Reports powered by ECONODAY