Before the Open (Dec 24)

Good morning. Happy Thursday. Happy Christmas Eve Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Australia rallied more than 1%; New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore also did well. Japan and China dropped. Europe is mostly closed today. The countries that are trading haven’t moved much. Futures here in the States are flat.
The dollar is down. Oil is up, copper is down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are flat.
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VIDEO: Leavitt Brothers Overview
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If you’re reading this, you truly are an addict, which isn’t a bad thing. To get good at anything, you’re going to have to love it to the point of missing it badly when it’s taken away from you. And you’ll never want it taken from you. Just make sure you have some balance in your life. I’ve always done better when I got away from my computer from time to time.
The market continues to do what it does best this time of year…drift up. The S&P is now up for the year, but it’s still down for the month of December.
The indexes are pretty neutral. Most are trading in the same range that persisted the first half of the year. Let’s not over-analyze things here. Today will be dead. The market closes early, and then we have a 3-1/2-day weekend.
Enjoy, spend some time with family. Recharge your battery. Next year will be very active.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Freeport-McMoRan (FCX +16.04%) is up over 1% in pre-market trading on positive carryover from Wednesday’s 16% surge.
Spark Energy (SPKE +1.65%) was cut to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Wunderlich.
TransMontaigne Partners LP (TLP +4.59%) was raised to a ‘Buy’ at Stifel with a price target of $27.
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn reported a 12.1% stake in Pep Boys Manny Moe & Jack (PBY +3.02%) .
Hyatt Hotels (H +2.96%) dropped over 1% in after-hours trading after it said it found malware on its payment processing computers.
Caesars Entertainment (CZR +1.75%) climbed over 2% in after-hours trading after an appeals court in Chicago ruled that two lower-court judges used faulty reasoning to deny Caesars’s request to halt a series of New York lawsuits that threaten to put its parent company into bankruptcy.
Cal-Maine Foods (CALM +1.72%) slipped nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS of $2.26, below consensus of $2.40.
Norfolk Southern (NSC +0.91%) declined over 1% in after-hours trading after it said it rejected a higher bid from Canadian Pacific Railway saying the offer was “grossly inadequate.”
MannKind (MNKD +2.67%) named Duane DeSisto, previous CEO of Insulet from 20013-2014, as its new CEO.
Agenus (AGEN +1.58%) rose over 3% in after-hours trading after it acquired PhosImmune for $9.9 million.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
4:30 PM Money Supply
4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
NYSE close at 1:00 PM
SIFMA close 2:00 PM
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers