Before the Open (Jul 9)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan rallied 2.6%, Australia and Taiwan more than 1%, Singapore and South Korea also did well. Europe is currently mostly up. Belgium is up 2.4%, Germany, Amsterdam, Switzerland, London and Greece are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up.
The market moved up yesterday but the indexes closed off their highs. The bears are so desperate. Once again they are utterly frustrated. The market was supposed to bounce back up to a significant level – be it a previous support level, a key moving average, a key Fib retracement, something – and then drop. Instead the market has kept going and going. And the bears keep making excuses. They’ll cite weak Volume, it’s summer, the Fed this, China that. And here we are with the Russell sitting at an all-time high (on a closing basis), and many other indexes having recaptured their post-FOMC losses.
I’m sticking with my “summer range” hypothesis. I think rallies will continue to get sold and dips will continue to get bought, and two months from now the market will be sitting in exactly the same spot.
Those who keep expectations in check by shooting for smaller and quicker gains will do fine. Those who try holding for weeks in an attempt to nail bigger moves will give profits back again and again. And of course brokerages will collect a toll on every trade.
Here are stock-specific headlines from barchart.com…
Kroger (KR +0.33%) will acquire Harris Teeter (HTSI +0.10%) for $49.38 per share.
Sprint (S -1.26%) was upgraded to “Outperform” from “Market Perform” at Cowen.
Wells Fargo (WFC +1.81%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Positive” at Susquehanna.
IBM (IBM +0.03%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Buy” at Goldman who lowered their price target on the stock to $200 from $220.
Hewlett-Packard (HPQ -1.60%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Hold” at Brean Capital with a price target of $32.
DuPont (DD +1.43%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Outperform” at Macquarie.
Signature Bank (SBNY +0.80%) was upgraded to “Outperform” from “Perform” at Oppenheimer who raised their price target on the stock to $100.
Barnes & Noble (BKS -0.11%) fell 4% in after-hours trading after it announced that CEO William Lynch resigned effective immediately.
Raytheon (RTN +1.52%) was awarded a $279.4 million government contract for developmental efforts in support of the U.S. Navy’s Technology Development Phase of the Next Generation Jammer Program.
Berkshire Hathaway reported a 16.15% stake in Symetra (SYA +0.12%) .
Comcast reported a 12.7% stake in Clearwire (CLWR unch) .
Alcoa (AA +1.41%) is up over 1% in pre-market trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 7 cents, better than consensus of 6 cents.
WD-40 (WDFC -0.22%) jumped over 11% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 66 cents, better than consensus of 56 cents, and boosted its fiscal year 2013 EPS view to $2.40-$2.48 from $2.32-$2.42, higher than consensus of $2.39.
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
today’s upgrades/downgrades