Before the Open (Oct 7)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Japan dropped more than 1%, Hong Kong and Australia weren’t far behind. Europe is currently mostly down. Austria, Amsterdam, France, Germany, Stockholm, Switzerland, Spain and London are posting solid losses. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up.
The government shutdown continues. Today is day #7, and we’re starting to get some very negative predictions regarding what the ultimate consequences could be economically if it continues.
Last week the market did a very good job taking the shutdown in stride. Wall St. expected it and planned for it and treated it like a one-time event that would go away and not affect the long term charts. The market gapped down several times, but the bulls showed up and prevented prices from being pushed down too far. Generally speaking the market traded range bound, but sooner or later the bulls will start believing the negative projections and sell some stock to reduce their risk. This will drive prices down.
I saw a headline this morning comparing the current shutdown with the Lehman crash. What a joke! The main stream media cares about ratings more than offering a realistic picture of the world. Lehman’s bankruptcy was a hint there was something wrong with the entire financial system – something that would take years to fix. If this shutdown causes GDP to go down a little, it’s still just a one-time event. It doesn’t imply anything has changed in the economy. If the market drops, it’ll be an opportunity to buy more stock at lower prices.
The trend is up until it’s not.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Alcoa (AA +1.27%) was downgraded to “Equal Weight” from “Overweight” at Morgan Stanley.
Qualcomm (QCOM +1.36%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Buy” at BofA/Merrill.
Toll Brothers (TOL -3.15%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Buy” at Goldman Sachs.
Piper Jaffray kept its “Overweight” rating on Facebook (FB +3.78%) and rasied their price target on the stock to $57 from $46.
IBM (IBM +0.13%) was downgraded to “Equal Weight” from “Overweight” at Barclays.
Hain Celestial (HAIN -0.15%) was upgraded to “Overweight” from “Neutral” at Piper Jaffray.
Apple (AAPL -0.08%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Hold” at Jefferies.
Signet Jewelers (SIG +1.54%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Hold” at Deutsche Bank.
Outerwall (OUTR +9.43%) rose 9% in after-hours tradng after Jana Partners reported a 13.5% stake in the company and said it intends to have discussions with Outerwall’s board and management regarding a review of strategic alternatives including: exploring a strategic transaction, selling or discontinuing certain businesses, or pursuing a sale of the company.
RA Capital reported a 14.96% passive stake in Achillion (ACHN -2.16%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
3:00 PM Consumer Credit.
Notable earnings before today’s open: none
Notable earnings after today’s close: none
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers