Before the Open (Dec 18)

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the downside. Japan, India and Indonesia dropped more than 1%; Malaysia and Taiwan were also weak. Europe is currently mostly down. Russia is down more than 3%; France, Austria, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Denmark and Finland are down more than 1%. Futures in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up.
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VIDEO: Leavitt Brothers Overview
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The market got hit hard yesterday and either gave back its previous day’s gains or was pretty close depending on which index you looked at.
The S&P is unchanged since mid October. The Russell is unchanged since the end of August. Despite the ups and downs, moves up have gotten sold, and moves down have gotten bought.
For various reasons, I don’t like what I see overall. I should probably do a video that summarizes all the things that bother me about the market. Squeezes will always take place – the biggest up moves, after all, take place within downtrends – but my big picture bias remains to the downside.
In the near term anything goes. So far this month we’ve had 6 up days and 7 down days, and more than half those days have been + or – 1%.
Don’t be a hero out there. No big bets. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Texas Instruments (TXN -2.65%) was downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at Bernstein with a 12-month price target of $62.
CarMax (KMX -2.57%) reported Q3 EPS of 63 cents, below consensus of 68 cents.
Lennar (LEN -3.58%) reported Q4 EPS of $1.21, higher than consensus of $1.11.
Darden Restaurants (DRI -1.52%) reported Q2 EPS of 54 cents, better than consensus of 42 cents.
Red Hat (RHT +0.11%) jumped over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 48 cents, above consensus of 46 cents.
AK Steel (AKS -6.85%) fell 1% in after-hours trading after it forecast a Q4 loss of 33 cents-38 cents, a much wider loss than estimates of -15 cents.
Transocean (RIG -2.48%) slipped nearly 2% in after-hours trading after Statoil ASA said it canceled its drillship contract with Transocean before its scheduled expiration due to a lack of work.
Rambus (RMBS -0.51%) rose almost 2% in after-hours trading after it announced that it will collaborate with Microsoft researchers on future memory requirements for quantum computing.
Knight Transportation (KNX -2.23%) tumbled 10% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on Q4 EPS to 31 cents-33 cents from a prior view of 36 cents-38 cents, below consensus of 37 cents.
PHH Corp. (PHH -1.55%) gained more than 3% in after-hours trading after it reported an agreement with Bank of America to provide mortgage origination services to Merrill Lynch clients.
Duluth Holdings (DLTH -4.03%) rose over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 4 cents, better than consensus of no change.
Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT -4.76%) dropped over 6% in after-hours trading after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration delayed a review of its liver-disease drug by 3 months to gather additional information.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
9:45 PMI Services Index Flash
10:00 Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
11:00 Kansas City Fed Mfg Survey
1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers