Before the Open (Nov 23)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. New Zealand rallied more than 1%; South Korea, Malaysia and Australia also did well. China, Singapore and Indonesia were weak. Europe currently leans to the downside. Greece is down more than 2%, Switzerland, Poland and Belgium more than 1%, and France, Netherlands and Turkey are also weak. Russia and Turkey are doing well. Futures in the States point towards a slight down open for the cash market.
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down.
The market posted its biggest up week of the year last week – not bad coming off its second biggest down week of the year, but I wasn’t overly impressed with the internals. In my view the bulls still have some proving to do.
The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P have resistance just overhead, and the small caps and mid caps are back to their lagging ways.
The internals moved up but not as much as one would expect given the big move from the indexes.
The quality and quantity of trading set-ups is below average. Given the proximity to the highs, this is a subtle warning. There should be better set-ups to play.
Overall I still like the market, but I believe it deteriorated a little last week. Nothing will be given to the bulls. They’re going to have to earn it.
This is holiday-shortened week. The market is closed Thursday, and Friday will be a half day. Wednesday will be very slow, so that leaves today and Tuesday and the only legit full days. I don’t care what the stats are regarding the market’s movement into Thanksgiving, but I do know that lower volume increases the odds things get more volatile.
I like the market, but I don’t love it. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Freeport McMoRan (FCX -1.90%) and Royal Gold (RGLD -2.99%) are both down nearly 2% in pre-market trading as metals prices plunged in early trade on Monday, with Dec copper falling to a fresh 6-1/2 year low.
Tyson Foods (TSN -1.82%) reported Q4 EPS of 83 cents, below consensus of 88 cents.
Chipolte Mexican Grill (CMG -12.32%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Sterne Agee CRT.
Novartis (NVS -0.25%) was cut to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Vontobel.
Kellog (K -0.33%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Credit Suisse with a price target of $76.
Allergan Plc (AGN +3.45%) is up over 5% in pre-market trading on speculation that Pfizer may acknowledge, as soon as today, a deal that it will acquire the company in an agreement worth more than $150 billion.
Panerea Bread (PNRA +0.20%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Maxim Group with a 12-month price target of $210.
Hewlett Packard (HPQ +1.96%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Maxim Group with a 2-month price target of $17.
Peabody Energy (BTU -4.65%) will sell New Mexico and Colorado coal assets for $358 million to Bowie Resource Partners LLC, which will also assume $105 million in liabilities.
Novacure (NVCR -1.65%) jumped over 10% in after-hours trading after Phase 3 data showed brain cancer patients who were treated with its Tumor Treating Fields therapy lived longer than patients who received chemotherapy alone.
TerraForm Power (TERP +9.65%) rose over 1% in after-hours trading after BlueMountain Capital raised its stake in the company to 10.1% from 7.3%.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
10:00 Existing Home Sales
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers