Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets lean to the downside. Hong Kong is down 1.7%, and New Zealand and Taiwan are down 0.4% and 0.5%. Australia and South Korea are out-performing. Europe currently leans to the downside. Greece is down 2.6% and Austria 0.8%. Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and France are also down noticeably. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down slightly. Oil is down slightly, copper is up. Gold and silver are down small amounts.
My conclusion from over the weekend was that we need to be very careful on the long side in the near term. Besides the marking having rallied a huge amount the last month (the risk/reward isn’t nearly what it was just a couple weeks ago), many negative divergences have formed. While the market has pushed to new highs, the 10-day of the NYSE AD line and AD volume line have put in lower highs. New highs at the NYSE and NASDAQ have also not matched previous high levels.
Divergences don’t have to be super sensitive. There can be a delay, but since we can’t time turns perfectly, the presence of so many divergences tells us to proceed with caution. This doesn’t mean you have to blindly dump all positions. It also doesn’t mean you can’t enter new positions. It does however mean you can’t swing for the fences – you have to be content with smaller gains.
Overall I like the market, but in the near term, tread carefully. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Barclays (BCS -1.05%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Canaccord.
Wisconsin Energy (WEC +0.02%) will acquire Integrys Energy (TEG +0.25%) for $9.1 billion.
NVIDIA (NVDA -1.10%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Sector Perform’ at Pacific Crest.
Burlington Stores (BURL +1.12%) were upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Owens Corning (OC -6.03%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Longbow.
Helmerich & Payne (HP +0.44%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at FBR Capital.
Express (EXPR -0.54%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Janney Capital.
Teradata (TDC -0.93%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at JMP Securities.
Ashland (ASH +0.32%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at KeyBanc.
DISH (DISH +2.47%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
AMD (AMD -5.96%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Sector Perform’ at Pacific Crest.
Nordstrom (JWN -0.39%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
SunPower (SPWR +1.10%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Brean Capital.
Cubist Pharmaceuticals (CBST +5.38%) announced the U.S. FDA approved its SIVEXTRO drug for the treatment of adult acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
10:00 Existing Home Sales
Notable earnings before today’s open: none
Notable earnings after today’s close: MU, SONC
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers