Before the Open (Mar 17)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. South Korea rallied more than 2%; Japan, China and India more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down. Germany, Italy, Spain and Stockholm are down more than 1%; Austria, Belgium, Amsterdam and France are down more than 0.8%. Greece is up 1.9%. Futures here in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.

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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up.
Solid up day for the market yesterday. The small caps are very close to their all-time high…not a surprise given they held up so well last week.
Yesterday oil got hit hard in route to dropping to a new low. Then it closed about a buck off its low, but today’s open will give that buck back. The long term oil trend remains solidly down. Many oil stocks bounced yesterday, so an interesting divergence formed.
There’s an FOMC announcement tomorrow. This may cause the market to be on the slower side today…even though no one expects the Fed to do anything with rates.
This is a semi important time. The drop off the February high should be considered a perfectly normal pullback for a strong market trending up. If the market can follow through and resist giving back the gains from the last three days, odds favor flat-to-up movement going forward. But if the gains are quickly given back, odds would favor flat-to-down movement. We’ll see. My bias remains to the upside, but I’m still of the opinion placing big bets is not wise. Trade, but protect your downside because things can change quickly. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Burlington Stores (BURL -2.07%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of $1.43, better than consensus $1.32, but then lowered guidance on fiscal 2015 adjusted EPS to $2.15-$2.25, below consensus of $2.26.
PG&E (PCG +3.38%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
Alibaba (BABA +2.61%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel.
DSW (DSW -0.86%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 35 cents, higher than consensus of 28 cents.
ABM Industries (ABM +1.58%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at RW Baird.
Credit Suisse (CS -0.08%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Macquarie.
Providence Service (PRSC -3.64%) reported Q4 EPS of 45 cents, well above consensus of 29 cents.
Ryerson (RYI -1.22%) reported Q4 EPS of 15 cents, below consensus of 20 cents.
American Airlines (AAL +2.03%) jumped 4% in after-hours trading after it was announced that it will replace Allergan (AGN +1.21%) in the S&P 500 as of the close of trading on March 20.
Luminus reported a 5.8% passive stake in Dynegy (DYN +1.34%).
Amber Capital reported a 5.7% passive stake in Gran Tierra (GTE -4.17%).
Heineken (HEINY +1.99%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Twitter (TWTR -0.49%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at Brean Capital with a price target of $61.
Facebook (FB +0.03%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at Brean Capital with a price target of $96.
LinkedIn (LNKD +0.41%) was initiated with a ‘Sell’ at Brean Capital with a price target of $208.
CHC Group (HELI -12.12%) reported a Q3 adjusted EPS loss of -50 cents, a much bigger loss than consensus of -28 cents.
Valeant (VRX +2.49%) filed to sell $1.45 billion in common stock.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
FOMC meeting begins
8:30 Housing Starts
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
Notable earnings before today’s open:ARCO, BURL, DSW, FDS, IOC, PLUG, RSPP, ZBRA
Notable earnings after today’s close:ADBE, FRSH, ORCL
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers