Before the Open (Nov 24)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets are mostly up. China, Hong Kong, Australia and Malaysia are up more than 1%; India, Indonesia and South Korea are also doing well. Europe currently leans to the upside. Spain and Belgium are up more than 1%. Germany, France and Italy are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is down a small amount. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are down.
Last week most of the indexes hit new highs, but the small caps lagged. This is a slight warning.
Also, after gapping up big on Friday, the market fell most of the day. The closing numbers were decent, but the intraday movement suggested the bulls are losing their ability to push price higher…especially in the face of very positive news.
But the bulls deserve the benefit of the doubt. The trend on all time frames is up. In fact, only once since the October low has the S&P dropped on consecutive days. The buying pressure has been steady and methodical and at times relentless. A single day where the market closes off its gap up highs is not reason to suddenly shift gears and expect a correction. Bottoms may form on single days; tops are often of the rounded variety, so a stiff down day here or there or a trend down day coming after a big gap up is not reason to immediately turn bearish.
Given this we don’t have many good set-ups to play with right now. Many stocks are too far gone to chase. Others need more time to set up. This puts me in a situation where the trend is solidly up, but per my trading style, there isn’t much for me to do. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Deutsche Bank keeps its ‘Buy’ rating on Hewlett-Packard (HPQ +0.89%) and raises its prices target on the stock to $45 from $40.
Standard Pacific (SPF -0.52%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
Copa Holdings (CPA +0.01%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank.
Tesla (TSLA -2.38%) rose over 1% in pre-market trading after Reuters reported that Tesla is in negotiations with BMW about partnering on batteries and lightweight components.
Verizon (VZ +0.04%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Citigroup.
Ulta Salon (ULTA +0.27%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI +1.91%) and Jacobs Engineering (JEC +0.68%) were both downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Trina Solar (TSL +4.10%) reported Q3 EPS of 14 cents, less than consensus of 15 cents.
AMC Entertainment (AMC -2.38%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs with a price target of $30.
Lockheed Martin (LMT +1.28%) is being awarded a $4.12 billion government contract modification for the production of 43 Low Rate Initial Production Lot VIII F-35 Lightning II aircraft.
Glenhill Advisors reported a 12.5% passive stake in The Joint (JYNT -1.66%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
9:45 PMI Services Index Flash
10:30 Dallas Fed Manufacturing Outlook
1:00 PM Results of $28B, 2-Year Note Auction
Notable earnings before today’s open: DCIX, ENTA, NM, TSL
Notable earnings after today’s close: ANW, ANFI, BRCD, CPRT, DY, KANG, NUAN, PANW, QIHU, VMEM, WDAY
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers