Before the Open (Jun 2)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up (although a couple were closed today). Japan and India rallied around 2%; Australia, Indonesia and Korea also did well. Malaysia dropped 0.5%. Europe is currently mostly up. Russia and Greece are up more than 2%; Italy, Spain, Norway and Amsterdam are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a flat-to-up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold is down, silver up.
To sum up my conclusion from the weekend…the picture is not clear. At best it’s mixed, and there aren’t many good set ups to be had right now.
The Dow and S&P are at or very near all-time highs. The Nas had caught up a bunch lately (it was the biggest winner among the indexes in May), but the Russell small caps are still lagging.
Some indicators are doing well but not great. The SPX bullish percent, for example, has been moving up and has taken out a previous high but is still far below the highs from earlier in the year. The Nas bullish percent is much closer to its recent low than its high.
Good set ups are hard to come by right now. There are a few, but when you have to look at 1000 charts just to find a small handful, the trading environment is not great.
In my opinion the best course of action right now is to be conservative. There isn’t a strong enough wind in one direction or the other to justify being super aggressive here. If you do trade, note the conditions and keep trades short term. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Oppenheimer increased its price target on Netflix (NFLX +0.63%) to $500 from $435 and keeps an ‘Outperform’ rating on the stock.
Conn’s (CONN -0.26%) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 80 cents, better than consensus of 73 cents.
Ventas (VTR +0.54%) will acquire American Realty Capital (HCT +1.63%) for $2.6 billion in stock and cash.
Alcoa (AA +0.22%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at BofA/Merrill.
Microchip Technology (MCHP +0.61%) and Xilinx (XLNX +0.21%) were both downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
The LA Times reports that JPMorgan Chase (JPM -0.27%) is being sued by the city of Los Angeles over predatory home loans.
STMicroelectronics (STM +0.20%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Volvo (VOLVY -0.82%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Marathon Oil (MRO unch) will sell its Norway business for $2.7 billion to Det norske oljeselskap ASA.
MSDC Management reported a 10.6% passive stake in Liquid Holdings (LIQD -8.64%) .
Armistice Capital reported a 5.16% passive stake in Digital Cinema (DCIN +1.41%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Gallup US Consumer Spending
9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index
10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index
10:00 Construction Spending
Notable earnings before today’s open: CONN
Notable earnings after today’s close: GWRE, KKD, ZQK
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers