Before the Open (Sep 3)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. India dropped 3.5%; Japan rallied 3%, and China, Hong Kong and Indonesia moved up more than 1%. Europe is currently mixed. Greece is up 2%, Belgium 1.1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil is down, copper up. Gold is down, silver is up 3%.
Over the weekend I painted a picture that leaned to the downside. Some indicators were ready to support a rally; others needed more time to move to an extreme level to support a rally.
But the big wildcard I noted was Syria. Even though the technicals leaned to the downside, if good news was released regarding Syria, all bets were off; the market could easily rally hard. This is exactly what has happened. It’s not that something good happened in Syria, it’s that nothing bad happened. The US didn’t launch an attack, and the growing chorus of anti-war language is picking up steam. Even members of the military are voicing their disapproval. Maybe, just maybe, the US won’t get involved.
News trumps the charts in the near term. All bets are off if the US announces they will no longer strike. Then after the initial knee-jerk reaction wears off, we’ll have to see if the weakish internals re-assert their influence or if the news is enough to permanently change the intermediate term.
Don’t over-analyze. News trumps the charts, and the ultimate effect is yet to be seen .
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Nokia (NOK -2.50%) was upgraded to “Perform” from “Underperform” at Oppenheimer.
Vodafone (VOD +1.73%) was upgraded to “Market Perform” from “Underperform” at Bernstein.
Constellation Brands (STZ -0.59%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at Goldman.
Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE -0.16%) was upgraded to “Conviction Buy” from “Neutral” at Goldman.
Verizon (VZ -0.92%) was upgraded to “Outperform” from “Sector Perform” at RBC Capital.
Williams-Sonoma (WSM -0.79%) was downgraded to “Hold” from “Buy” at Canaccord.
Dean Foods (DF -0.36%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Buy” at Goldman.
Green Mountain (GMCR -2.78%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Buy” at SunTrust.
Apache (APA +8.95%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at Mizuho.
Microsoft (MSFT -0.45%) fell 1.3% in pre-market trading after it agreed to buy Nokia Oyj’s mobile-phone business and license its patents for $7.2 billion.
Booz Allen (BAH -2.79%) filed to sell 20 million shares of class A common stock.
Verition Fund Management reported a 12.3% stake in Acorn Energy (ACFN -2.76%).
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
9:00 PMI Manufacturing Index
10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index
10:00 Construction Spending
Notable earnings before today’s open: none
Notable earnings after today’s close: GWRE, HRB, PIKE, SIGM
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers

0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Sep 3)”

  1. our heros are back at the controls and futures up. Ism today, Jobs friday. A pop on the open but maybe a rethink later in the AM. This is probably a distribution rally, watch the tape on the open for volume, then a little collapse. If not, it means a full court press to jobs. And the good news from Syria: confusion clouds all minds which will not be noticed in Congress clouds are a way of life.

  2. Friday withstood two attacks on SPX 1630, one very near the closing bell. Kerry’s speech in the afternoon was worrisome. Then obama’s speech Sat afternoon removed the worry temporarily. Futures Sunday night gapped +10 and kept going.
    Significant levels of resistance overhead.
    First level 1654, then 1664. Can’t see us conquering much higher than that today. If so, will update.
    As Jason says, Syria News will trump.

  4. can we get to a key reversal down or is that pushing it
    just closed all my massive world shorts on europe close–dji spx nas100 ftse dax xjo n225 on close of europe and going to sleep
    volume on the tick indicator all real bearish with extremes below negative 1000

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