Before the Open (Dec 22)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, India, Malaysia and Taiwan each rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently up across-the-board. Germany, Austria, Belgium, Amsterdam, Norway and Prague are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
The dollar is down 0.05%. Oil is down, copper is down. Gold is up, silver is down.
VIDEO: Divergence Between Oil and Oil Stocks Helps Spot Opportunity
The entire world is feeding off last week’s US strength. Indonesia and Brazil are the only markets I see not posting a gain. Lots of optimism out there…and why not? The world’s largest and strongest market just completed a huge up week that saw the S&P 500 rally 100 points in three days. Most of the indexes are pretty close to a new high.
The breadth indicators moved nicely off their lows. How they act going forward will tell us what kind of legs this bounce is likely to get. If they move towards their highs, that would be a sign of strength and would likely lead to a semi-sustained rally going forward. But if they struggle, if they move up and then chop around without getting sustained support, that would be a sign of weakness that will likely lead to the market dropping back.
Here’s an example…the S&P vs. the 10-day of the NYSE AD line. If the AD line moves up to the 600-800 area, we’ll get a continuation of the newly-formed uptrend, but if it struggles to get much above 0, the market’s upside will be very limited. More after the open.

Stock headlines from barchart.com…
BlackBerry (BBRY -0.79%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at TD Securities.
Tesco (TESO +4.78%) lowered guidance on Q4 EPS excluding items to 10 cents-15 cents, well below consensus of 32 cents.
Seagate (STX +1.17%) and Western Digital ({=WDC were both downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Longbow.
Time Warner (TWX +0.65%) was initiated with an ‘Outperform’ at Pacific Crest with a price target of $99.
Finish Line (FINL -19.20%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Janney Capital.
Gilead (GILD +2.76%) dropped 4% in pre-market trading after Express Scripts said it will offer AbbVie’s just approved hepatitis C regimen Viekira Pak at a “significant discount” starting Jan. 1, while excluding competing drugs from Gilead and Johnson & Johnson,
ARAMARK (ARMK +0.95%) was upgraded to ‘Top Pick’ from ‘Outperform’ at RBC Capital.
Yahoo reported a 16.7% passive stake in Hortonworks (HDP +1.66%).
Raytheon (RTN +0.76%) was awarded a $2.4 billion government contract for 10 PATRIOT fire units with spares for the State of Qatar.
Harvey Partners reported 5.0% passive stake in Oil-Dri Corporation of America (ODC -0.16%) .
Adage Capital Partners reported an 18.84% passive stake in Advaxis (ADXS +15.43%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
10:00 Existing Home Sales
1:00 PM Results of $27B, 2-Year Note Auction
Notable earnings before today’s open: BBRY, KMX, CCL, FINL, PAYX
Notable earnings after today’s close: SCS
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers