Before the Open (May 20)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, Indonesia and Japan gained more than %; there were no big losers. Europe is currently mixed. Only Greece (down 2.8%) has moved much from its unchanged level. Futures here in the States point towards a slight down open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
I don’t have anything to add to the comments I made over the weekend in the Weekly Report. Lay down your analysis tools. The market is going to do what it’s going to do. Projecting an upside target based on chart patterns or Fib expansions or Elliot Wave or harmonic patterns or any other technique is useless right now. Sometimes the market gets in a mode where it has something to accomplish and nothing thrown its way has the ability to derail it. Earnings news, economic news, news from abroad – nothing will slow the runaway train down. It will run out of steam on its own terms.
Here is some stock-specific news from barchart.com…
Campbell Soup (CPB -0.46%) reported Q3 EPS of 62 cents, better than expectations of 56 cents, and raised guidance on fiscal 2013 to an adjusted EPS of $2.58-$2.62, higher than consensus of $2.56.
Red Hat (RHT +0.51%) was downgraded at BMO Capital to “Market Perform” from “Outperform” on valuation concerns.
Northrop Grumman (NOC +4.01%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Hold” at Drexel Hamilton, who raised their price taret on the stock to $90 from $70.
Stifel raised their price target on Boeing (BA +2.42%) to $115 from $100.
Actavis (ACT +1.53%) will acquire Warner Chilcott ({=WCRX in a $8.5 billion stock-for-stock transaction.
Bloomberg reported that Tesla (TSLA -0.81%) is planning to use $452.4 million of the $1.08 billion the company raised in a debt and equity offering to pay back to the government for its Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan.
Meade Instruments (MEAD -4.02%) to be acquired by Jinghua for $4.5 million or $3.45 per share.
Gabelli raised its stake in Lufkin (LUFK -0.02%) to 8.87% from 7.82%.
Accenture (ACN +2.02%) acquired Acquity Group (AQ -1.00%) for $316 million.
The Novartis (NVS -1.15%) drug Afinitor extended time without disease progression in women with HER2 positive advanced breast cancer, according to results of a Phase 3 trial.
The market is not acting normal right now. Ride the trend the best you can (it’s not easy when you don’t get normal ups and downs). More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers