Before the Open (Jul 13)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. China rallied more than 2%; Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Taiwan and South Korea moved up 1% or more. Europe is currently up across-the-board. Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland and Portugal are 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 up.
As expected big news this weekend comes from Europe, where Greece has completely thrown in the towel. Not only have they agreed to a third bailout (on Europe’s terms), they have to put 50B euro of state assets in a trust to be sold off with the proceeds used to pay the debt. Other austerity measures have to go through parliament, which will be tough given the “no” vote in last weekend’s referendum. The Greek stock market remains closed.
There is likely to be news today in the Middle East between Iran and six world powers regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
Last week the US market absorbed a massive amount of negative news and ended up closing flat. That’s a heck of a performance. Yes it was very volatile, but being able to hold up during a time when the bears could have and should have taken over is bullish.
My bias leans to the upside. Besides the overall positive action last week, several indicators moved to extreme levels and reversed.
The stage is set for a technical bounce. Whether it has legs is another question, but for now, the path of least resistance is up. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Apple (AAPL +2.67%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Societe Generale.
AutoNation (AN +0.65%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Underweight’ at Morgan Stanley with a price target of $70.
Brocade (BRCD +3.00%) was downgraded to ‘Sector Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at RBC Capital.
Ingersoll-Rand (IR +0.47%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel.
Murphy Oil (MUR -1.50%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.
Hologic (HOLX +1.98%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Evercore ISI.
Vornado (VNO +0.27%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
PepsiCo (PEP +1.01%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Positive’ at Susquehanna.
Groupon (GRPN -1.22%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Macquarie.
ASM Research, an Accenture Federal Services company (ACN +1.05%) , has been awarded a $300 million contract from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
IMAX (IMAX +3.08%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at Piper Jaffray with a price target of $41.
STMicroelectronics (STM +4.97%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Mark Tompkins reported a 5.6% passive stake in Pieris Pharmaceuticals (PIRS +5.58%) .
ARRIS (ARRS +1.82%) lowered guidance on Q2 EPS view to 51 cents-55 cents from 53 cents-58 cents, below consensus of 56 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s economic calendar:
2:00 PM Treasury Budget
Notable earnings before today’s open: none
Notable earnings after today’s close: NEPT, OZRK
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers