Before the Open (Aug 20)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. China dropped more than 3%; Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, India and South Korea fell more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece is down more than 2%; France, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Prague, Turkey, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Norway are down 1% or more. Futures here in the States point towards a fairly big gap down for the cash market.
VIDEO overview of the Leavitt Brothers service…here
The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are mostly up.
Yesterday the Fed released the minutes from the last FOMC meeting. They were dovish. The market quickly surged but then gave everything back and now premarket futures levels point towards an open below yesterday’s low. The roller coaster continues…the internals continue to point down…and now the indexes are having a hard time sustaining a move up. Over the summer the market was constantly able to match or exceed its previous highs; now it hasn’t come close to matching its high in about a month. My bias remains to the downside. This has been my stance for a while – that rallies would continue to get sold until the internals improve, which they have a little but not enough to support a full-blown leg up.
Overall the market is doing this…

But beneath the surface individual stocks are not holding up as well. If the market is simply in a holding pattern, why are so many stocks dropping to new lows while so few are rallying to new highs?
Anything goes day to day, but until the internals improve, my bias will remain to the downside. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Union Pacific (UNP -0.67%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Macquarie.
Disney (DIS -0.46%) and Time Warner (TWX -1.51%) were both downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at Bernstein.
Tech Data (TECD -0.55%) reported Q2 non-GAAP EPS of $1.43, well above consensus of 96 cents.
Lockheed Martin (LMT -0.65%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Sterne Agee CRT.
Analog Devices (ADI +0.83%) was downgraded to ‘Reduce’ from ‘Neutral’ at Nomura.
Targa Resources (TRGP -3.21%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Hold’ at Jefferies.
The recent sell-off in AMC Networks (AMCX -1.14%) provides a ‘great’ entry point, says Piper Jaffray, who reiterates their ‘Overweight’ rating on the stock with a $90 price target.
FrontFour Capital reported a 7.4% passive stake in North American Energy (NOA -0.53%) .
Fifth Third Bank (FITB -0.80%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at Sterne Agee CRT with a price target of $25.
L Brands (LB -0.21%) fell over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS of 68 cents, right on consensus, but then lowered guidance on Q3 EPS to 40 cents-45 cents, weaker than consensus of 48 cents.
United Natural Foods (UNFI -0.75%) lowered guidance on fiscal 2016 EPS to $2.86-$2.98, below consensus of $3.05.
Mattel (MAT -1.70%) was initiated with an ‘Outperform’ at Oppenheimer with a price target of $28.
Leidos (LDOS -0.29%) was awarded a $4.3 billion contract by the U.S. Department of Defense as part of the Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization Program to provide an electronic health record solution, integration activities and deployment across the U.S. military health system.
SpartanNash (SPTN -1.93%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 53 cents, above consensus of 51 cents.
Synopsys (SNPS +0.62%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 63 cents, higher than consensus of 59 cents.
NetApp (NTAP -1.65%) shot up over 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 EPS of 29 cents, better than consensus of 23 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Philly Fed Business Outlook
10:00 Existing Home Sales
10:00 Leading Indicators
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 Money Supply
4:30 Fed Balance Sheet
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers