Before the Open (Jun 15)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Indonesia and China lost 2%; Hong Kong fell more than 1%; Malaysia and Singapore also posted sizable losses. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece is down more than 5%; Austria and Italy are down more than 2%; London, Germany, France, Amsterdam, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Prague, Turkey, Spain, Belgium and Portugal are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a relatively big gap down open for the cash market.
S&P Select – Week in Review
The dollar is up. Oil is down, copper is down. Gold is flat, silver is down. Bonds are up.
We enter this new week in neutral mode. The bulls rallied the market last Wednesday, but instead of getting robust follow through, the market traded flat Thursday and then gave a big chunk of the gains back Friday. The indexes are pretty much unchanged going back several months. Rallies get sold, dips get bought. No move lasts long. This has forced us to be a little pickier with trades and less aggressive (this means holding times are shorter). It is what it is. We trade the market we’re dealt, not the market we want.
The Fed meets and announces their overnight rate and discount rate targets this Wednesday. This is the meeting that was billed as being the one rates would be moved up. Things have changed over the last nine months, and I don’t see them doing anything with rates right now. There’s a bubble forming in the Chinese market. Greece is in serious trouble. I don’t see the Fed exacerbating the situation by raising rates.
Speaking of Greece, debt discussions between Greece and its European creditors broke down after only 45 minutes on Sunday. Greece is a small country with a very small GDP. It shouldn’t matter, yet it does – at least in the near term.
For what it’s worth, options expire this week.
Be careful out there. Lots of head wins, and there aren’t many good set ups anyways. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
21st Century Fox (FOXA -0.64%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Topeka.
CVS Health (CVS -0.40%) agreed to acquire Target’s (TGT -0.75%) pharmacy and clinic businesses for $1.9 billion.
BHP Billiton (BHP -0.53%) was upgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Reduce’ at HSBC.
Crown Holdings (CCK -1.03%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
EMC (EMC -0.84%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at FBR Capital.
Teradata (TDC +0.03%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at JMP Securities.
Micron (MU +0.44%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.
Alleghany (Y -0.30%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Janney Capital.
SanDisk (SNDK -0.84%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
United Technologies (UTX -0.61%) announced that it will pursue the separation of the Sikorsky Aircraft business from United Technologies.
comScore (SCOR +0.12%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Farallon Capital reported an 8.6% stake in Perfect World (PWRD -0.45%).
American Securities reported a 13.96% stake in Xerium Technologies (XRM +0.64%).
OZ Management reported a 9.02% passive stake in PennTex (PTXP +0.25%).
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
9:15 Industrial Production
10:00 NAHB Housing Market Index
4:00 PM Treasury International Capital
Notable earnings before today’s open: MPAA
Notable earnings after today’s close: CPST, OTC:PFIE
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers