Before the Open (Jul 7)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Indonesia rallied 1.7%, India and Singapore between 0.5-0.6%. Japan was the biggest loser (down 0.4%). Europe currently leans to the downside. Austria is down 1.6%, Prague and Spain 0.8%, France and Italy 0.7%, Amsterdam and Switzerland 0.5%. Russia is up 1.2%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is flat. Oil is down 14 cents, copper is down. Gold and silver are down.
We enter this new week with all the indexes at new highs (most at all time highs), but a couple divergences are warning that breadth is not as robust as we’d like. Plus the Nas, Russell small caps and S&P mid caps are in unsustainable uptrends – they have gone vertical and cannot continue at this pace.
This is the same situation as it was entering last week, but with the holiday causing volume to drop as the week went by, it was easy for prices to drift up. There could be a hangover today – traders could take an extra day off – but then we’re going to find out just how strong the bulls are.
I like the market…I’ve liked the market for a while. But within an uptrend, there are times to be super aggressive and times to scale back some. I think it’s time to scale back some (assuming you’re a trader and not an investor who buys and holds for many months at a time). This doesn’t mean you go to cash. It just means dumping your weakish positions and being more selective with new entries isn’t a bad idea. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY +2.68%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA/Merrill.
Williams-Sonoma (WSM +0.51%) and Ultratech (UTEK -0.61%) were both upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA/Merrill.
Cinemark (CNK +0.45%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at B. Riley.
Southern Copper (SCCO +3.51%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital.
Charles Schwab (SCHW +2.55%) was upgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Underperform’ at Raymond James.
Applied Materials (AMAT +0.09%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan.
Devon Energy (DVN +0.80%) and Western Refining (WNR +2.58%) were both upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.
Peabody ({=BTU and Coeur Mining ({=CDE were both downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Boerse (DBOEY -0.52%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse.
DT Advanced Technologies (GTAT -1.11%) slid over 6% in pre-market trading after Canaccord Genuity Group downgraded the stock to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy.’
Ebay (EBAY +0.77%) rose nearly 1% in pre-market trading after it said it extended a collect-in-store alliance with the UK’s Argos chain to 650 outlets from 150.
King Digital Entertainment (KING -2.93%) rose nearly 3% in pre-market trading after Piper Jaffray upgraded the stock to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral.’
Archer-Daniels Midland (ADM +0.99%) rose 0.5% in pre-market trading after it said it will acquire Wild Flowers GmbH for $3 billion.
Sandell reported an 8.4% stake in Bob Evans (BOBE +1.17%) .
Gabelli reported an 8.45% stake in PLX Technology (PLXT unch) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Gallup US ECI
12:30 PM TD Ameritrade IMX
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