Before the Open (Nov 11)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. Happy Veterans Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Taiwan and Malaysia fell more than 1%; India was also weak. Australia did okay to the upside. Europe is currently mostly up. Germany, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Denmark, Finland, Spain and Belgium are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper is down. Gold is down slightly, silver is up. Bonds are down.
The treasury market is closed today, so any guidance the stock market typically receives won’t be in place.
The market hasn’t done much the last 7-10 days. The indexes moved up a little and then back down and are now mostly flat over this time period. Two weekends ago I questioned the market’s upside potential, given the negative divergences that were forming. If you sat your hands and didn’t do anything, you didn’t miss much.
I have felt like a broken record lately. Not a surprise given what has taken place the last six weeks. There have been up days, and there have been down days, but the overall direction has been mostly up. Sentiment has shifted, and instead of the world-is-coming-to-an-end commentary we heard in September, Wall St is well-positioned to enjoy some end-of-year holiday gains. Maybe we get a bigger dip first to set up another leg up…or perhaps the market will just grind up (3 steps forwards, 2 steps back). In either case I like the overall market, but will remain somewhat conservative in the very near term. I want to see some improvement from the internals before I “press trades.”
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Tyco International Plc (TYC -0.14%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase with a price target of $42.
Alarm.com Holdings (ALRM +4.07%) jumped 10% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 14 cents, well above consensus of 2 cents, and then raised guidance on fiscal 2015 adjusted EPS to 20 cents-21 cents from an August estimate of 13 cents-14 cents, above consensus of 14 cents.
MetLife (MET -0.06%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley.
Horizon Pharma Plc (HZNP +0.40%) plunged 25% in pre-market trading after Express Scripts Holding said it was suing the company for $140 million for unfilled contractual obligations.
SanDisk (SNDK -1.57%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at Bernstein.
Sanofi (SAN -0.72%) and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN +1.14%) announced that 74% of patients in a Phase 3 clinical trial reached their pre-specified LDL cholesterol targets within 8 weeks of adding the new Praluent (alirocumab) injection to their standard-of-care.
WuXi PharmaTech (WX +0.20%) and Eli Lilly (LLY +0.88%) announced that have entered into a strategic collaboration to develop, manufacture and promote a cholesterol drug in China.
Boston Scientific (BSX +1.13%) fell nearly 4% in after-hours trading after CMS said evidence shows that percutaneous left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) therapy using an implanted device is not necessary.
ChannelAdvisor reported that Amazon (AMZN +0.64%) Oct same-store-sales rose +16.4% y/y.
Lockheed Martin (LMT -0.29%) was awarded a 5-year U.S. Air Force contract worth as much as $968.7 million to build 17 C-130J aircrafts.
Public Storage (PSA +1.00%) was rated a new ‘Underweight’ at BB&T Capital Markets with a 12-month price target of $217.50.
Veritex Holdings (VBTX +1.45%) filed to sell $150 million of mixed securities.
Boot Barn (BOOT +2.49%) dropped over 9% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS to 76 cents-80 cents from an August estimate of 85 cents-90 cents, below consensus of 86 cents.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers