Before the Open (Mar 23)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China rallied 2%, and Japan moved up 1%. Malaysia dropped 0.7%. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece is up 2.2%, followed by London and Belgium (up 0.8% each). Germany is down 1%, followed by France, Russia and Stockholm (down 0.7% each). Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.

My public list at stockcharts.com is here. Vote if you want me to continue posting.
The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up.
I don’t have anything new to add to the comments I made over the weekend. The trend is up, and all the breadth indicators are pointing in the bulls direction, but since tops don’t typically form until a divergence forms, odds favor more upside.
The S&P and Dow have their all-time highs just above Friday’s closes. The Nas and Nas 100 have a little extra work to do but are pretty darn close. Those levels are like magnets. I think they get taken out eventually. Maybe on the current leg up; maybe on the next leg up. In either case, odds favor all the indexes printing new highs.
Oil is down 63 cents on news Saudi Arabia reiterated it will not cut production. Supposedly they approached non OPEC members about cutting, but the non OPEC producers insisted OPEC should carry the burden.
That’s it for now. News is light this week; earnings announcements are virtually nonexistent. It’s business as usual, and the trend is up. More after the open.
S&P Select Week in Review ->> here

Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Gilead Sciences (GILD +0.84%) fell over 2% in pre-market trading after it issued a drug warning and said that nine patients that were taking its hepatitis C medicine along with the heart treatment amiodarone developed abnormally slow heartbeats and one died of cardiac arrest.
Biogen (BIIB +9.76%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Stifel.
Staples (SPLS +1.25%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
NetApp (NTAP +1.69%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at Piper Jaffray.
Sherwin-Williams (SHW +1.94%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
NVIDIA (NVDA +1.08%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Darden Restaurants (DRI +2.90%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Telsey Advisory.
Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL +0.43%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank.
Hennessy Capital Partners reported a 13.4% stake in Blue Bird (BLBD +5.77%).
Lowe’s (LOW +0.90%) announced new $5 billion share repurchase program.
Discovery Group reported a 5.5% stake in Bazaarvoice (BV +0.17%).
Meridian Venture Partners reported a 20.7% stake in ANI Pharmaceuticals (ANIP -2.25%).
Glenhill Advisors reported a 5.2% passive stake in Pier 1 Imports (PIR +4.85%).
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
10:00 Existing Home Sales
10:00 PM Fed’s Williams: Economic Outlook
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