Before the Open (Nov 19)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed up across-the-board. Australia rallied better than 2%, and Japan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, India, South Korea and Taiwan did better than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. London, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and Spain are up more than 1%; Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.
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The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are mixed.
Big rally yesterday that recaptured Tuesday’s drop and added to Monday’s rally. Everything improved across-the-board (duh, how could it not). The internals improved some…charts of individual stocks are starting to set up.
But here’s the problem. This has been a year of reversals. There have been upwards of 20 reversals this year – moves in one direction that quickly reverse. And other than the move off the early-February low that lasted a month and the move off the October low, which also lasted a month, there has been no staying power. That means if you wait for the market to start trending and for the internals to start confirming the move, the move ends and goes the other way.
This has been the hardest aspect of this year’s action for a swing trader to deal with – nothing has lasted, so waiting a few extra days for a mini trend to develop simply hasn’t worked well. I’m of course talking about the overall market. Individual stocks have trended, but you had to be a great stock picker to find those.
So here we are…the market is trying to resume its uptrend that began at the end of September. By the time you get confirmation, it could be too late to jump in long. It’s food for thought. Analyze your activity and see where you missed out. The market is constantly shifting, so you have to make slight changes. You can’t force a single trading style on different market conditions and personalities. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Allergan (AGN +4.53%) rose over 1% in pre-market trading after Pfizer is said to be near a deal to acquire the company for as much as $380 a share.
Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR +0.92%) surged over 15% in pre-market trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 85 cents, well above consensus of 71 cents.
Salesforce.com (CRM +0.14%) rose over 7% in pre-market trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 21 cents, higher than consensus of 19 cents, and then raised guidance on fiscal 2016 adjusted EPS to 74 cents-75 cents from an August estimate of 70 cents-72 cents, above consensus of 73 cents.
Best Buy (BBY +2.02%) dropped over 8% in pre-market trading after it reported Q3 domestic comparable sales were up +0.8%, weaker than consensus of +1.4%.
General Dynamics (GD +0.59%) was upgraded to a ‘Buy’ at Argus Research with a price target of $160.
NetApp (NTAP -0.83%) climbed over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 61 cents, better than consensus of 57 cents.
DaVita (DVA +1.15%) slid almost 2% in after-hours trading after it said the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a false claims investigation into DaVita’s wholly owned subsidiary, RMS Lifeline.
Hillenbrand (HI +2.10%) reported Q4 EPS of 55 cents, right on consensus, but reported Q4 revenue of $392 million, below consensus of $421 million.
L Brands (LB +1.55%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 55 cents, above consensus of 53 cents, but then said it sees fiscal 2015 EPS of $3.69-$3.79, below consensus of $3.79.
Semtech (SMTC +1.53%) dropped over 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 19 cents, below consensus of 24 cents, and said it sees Q4 adjusted EPS of 14 cents-18 cents, weaker than consensus of 23 cents.
Delta Airlines (DAL -0.04%) rallied nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it said it will buy another 32% stake in Aeromexico and increase its total stake in the company to 49%.
SunEdison (SUNE +7.62%) dropped over 10% in after-hours trading after Blackstone said it is not interested in investing in the company.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
8:30 Philly Fed Business Outlook
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:00 Leading Indicators
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers