Before the Open (Jun 17)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China dropped 0.9%; Hong Kong and Singapore dropped around 0.45%. India rallied 1.3%; Indonesia, Korea and Taiwan also did well. Europe is currently mixed. Belgium, Norway and Russia are down noticeably. There are no big winners. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.

The dollar is flat. Oil is down; copper is flat. Gold and silver are flat.
The market moved up yesterday, but gains were small and volume dropped off for the second straight day. The Russell closed near its high while the other major indexes closed closer to the middle of their ranges.
Overall I continue to like the market and believe higher prices are coming. But in the very near term it’s unclear if last week’s selling was all we’ll get in terms of a pullback or if there’s more coming.
Today starts the 2-day FOMC meeting, so perhaps we have a slow day ahead of us.
I see no reason to abruptly abandon all longs right now. I’d certainly cut the dead weight (this is often the case), but if you have positions that are working, manage them but don’t dump them. If you cashed out every time the market looked iffy in the near term, you’d spend most of the time in cash, and you’d miss most of the big moves. This is a game where you can’t be too precise. You can’t enter and exit at exactly the perfect times. If you want to make money, you’ll have to maintain some exposure during iffy times because when the market moves, it’ll move without you.
And for what it’s worth, yesterday’s open-interest report suggests a move down is needed for max pain to be realized. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
SanDisk (SNDK +3.58%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Underperform’ at CLSA.
The WSJ reports that AT&T (T -0.14%) will be the exclusive carrier for Amazon’s (AMZN +0.41%) new smartphone.
Booz Allen (BAH -0.18%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA/Merrill.
Southwest (LUV -0.76%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel with a price target of $30.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ -0.50%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA/Merrill.
Bloomberg reported that Apple (AAPL +1.01%) has defeated a patent infringement lawsuit over wireless network technology brought by Golden Bridge Technology.
DSW (DSW +0.22%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
SAB Capital Advisors reported a 6.1% passive stake in RCS Capital (RCAP +0.59%) .
Becker Drapkin reported a 8.7% passive stake in Hudson Technologies (HDSN +9.06%) .
Williams (WMB +18.74%) fell 1% in after-hours trading after it filed to sell $3 billion of common stock.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
FOMC meeting begins
7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales
8:30 Consumer Price Index
8:30 Housing Starts
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
Notable earnings before today’s open: FDS, ISLE, YGE
Notable earnings after today’s close: ADBE, BOBE, LZB
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers