Before the Open (Sep 8)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. Hope you had a great long weekend.
Yesterday the Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. China and Indonesia dropped more than 2%; Hong Kong and India fell more than 1%. Today the region closed mostly up. Hong Kong rallied 3.3%; China moved up 2.9%; and Singapore, Australia and India gained more than 1%. Japan dropped 2.4%.
Yesterday Europe closed mostly up. London, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Greece did well. Today, the region is doing even better. Greece is up more than 3%, Germany more than 2% and London, France, Austria, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Finland, Belgium and Portugal are up more than 1%.
Futures here in the States point towards a relatively big gap up open for the cash market.
S&P Select – Week in Review
The dollar is down. Oil is down, but it’s about $1.70 off its low. Copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down.
We start this new, holiday-shortened week with the bulls being a little disappointed. Two weeks ago the market plunged out of the gate, but the bulls stepped up and completely recaptured all the losses. The S&P rallied better than 100 off its low, and all the indexes closed with gains on the week. There was hope heading into last week the momentum would continue, but it didn’t happen. Despite strength Wednesday and Thursday morning, a huge sell-off Tuesday and additional selling Friday put the indexes deep in negative territory for the week.
Now the market is somewhat neutral. Several indicators, such as the 10-day of the AD line, are in the middle of their ranges and now overly bullish or bearish, and the indexes are near the midpoints of their two-week ranges. Just like last week, I’m looking for a move up to lure in some bulls who are fearful a bottom is in place and they’ll miss the next leg up, before the next big move down takes place. Last week I outlined in a video exactly what I needed to happen in order for me to believe a rally had the ability to sustain itself.
Overall I’m bearish. The breadth indicators are too weak for me to be anything but bearish in the intermediate term, but the ying and yan of the market says up first to lure investors in…then smack it down.
Short term bullish…intermediate term bearish…long term neutral (I don’t expect a full-blown bear market…just a healthy correction). More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Wells Fargo (WFC -2.17%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Evercore ISI.
Meredith (MDP -0.67%) will acquire Media General (MEG -1.85%) in a deal valued at about $2.4 billion.
SanDisk (SNDK -2.37%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Bank of America (BAC -1.82%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Nomura.
Marvell (MRVL -2.43%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Overweight’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Regeneron (REGN -1.68%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Sell’ at UBS.
Denbury Resources (DNR -4.81%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
Amgen (AMGN -1.48%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.
Columbia Pipeline Partners (CPPL +0.10%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Barclays.
Office Depot (ODP -0.82%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at B. Riley.
Royal Gold (RGLD -0.91%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Emera will acquire TECO Energy (TE +0.05%) in a $10.4 billion transaction that will make TECO Energy a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera.
Warren Buffett reported a 10.8% passive stake in Phillips 66 (PSX -1.61%).
Glenview Capital reported a 5.2% passive stake in Hertz (HTZ -1.95%).
Discovery Group reported a 5.5% stake in TubeMogul (TUBE -1.51%).
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
6:00 NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
8:30 Gallup US Consumer Spending Measure
10:00 Labor market condition index
12:30 PM TD Ameritrade IMX
1:00 PM Results of $24B, 3-Year Note Auction
3:00 PM Consumer Credit

Today’s Earnings here
Other
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers

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