Before the Open (Mar 30)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closes mostly up. China rallied 2.6%, followed by India (up 1.9%) and Hong Kong (up 1.5%). Australia dropped 1.2%, and New Zealand fell 0.6%. Europe is currently mostly up. Italy, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Russia are all up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.

S&P Select – Week in Review
The dollar is up. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
We begin the new week with the near term not being very clear. The overall trend is up, but day to day and week to week, nothing is consistent. Nothing sticks. Up, down, up down. Other than an a slightly extended push at the end of February, the market has been range bound for almost five months. Rallies get sold and dips get bought. No move lasts long, so trades have needed to be kept shorter term. If you’re a trend trader, this is frustrating, but it is what it is. Lots of little wins add up, so don’t brush them aside.
Some indicators are in good shape. Others suggest a little internal deterioration and lack of participation. The market isn’t extremely sensitive to these, but they shouldn’t be ignored.
It’s probably best to not harbor too strong of an opinion. The near and intermediate term are not clear, and with the market not gathering much momentum in either direction, whatever happens the next couple days could easily reverse soon after.
No big bets.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Nike (NKE +0.55%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at RW Baird.
Genesco (GCO +0.49%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at RW Baird
BHP Billiton (BHP -1.98%) was upgraded to ‘Outperformer’ from ‘Sector Performer’ at CIBC.
Western Union (WU +1.60%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Evercore ISI.
Xilinx (XLNX +5.85%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
Madison Square Garden (MSG +1.55%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Topeka.
Horizon Pharma (HZNP +3.27%) will acquire Hyperion Therapeutics (HPTX -1.88%) for $46.00 per share, or $1.1 billion on a fully diluted basis.
Restoration Hardware (RH +4.06%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.
Barclays upgraded Analog Devices (ADI +2.47%) to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ saying it believes the chip maker has secured multiple socket wins in Apple’s iPhone and iPad.
Altera (ALTR +28.37%) is up over 3% in pre-market trading on carry-over support from Friday’s 28% surge in the stock amid reports that Intel is in negotiations to acquire the company.
Realty Income (O -0.37%) will replace Windstream (WIN -5.10%) in the S&P 500 as the close of trading on April 6.
Fitch Ratings downgraded Greece’s Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings to ‘CCC’ from ‘B.’
Enterprise Partners reported a 8.3% passive stake in Celladon (CLDN +2.88%) .
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Personal Income and Outlays
10:00 Pending Home Sales
10:30 Dallas Fed Manufacturing Outlook
3:00 PM Farm Prices
7:15 PM Stanley Fischer
Notable earnings before today’s open: AIR, CALM
Notable earnings after today’s close: none
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers