Before the Open (Mar 22)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside, but movement was minimal. Japan rallied almost 2%; China and Indonesia dropped 0.6%. Europe is currently mostly down. France, Austria, the Netherlands, Turkey, Finland, Spain, and Italy are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up.
Not much happened yesterday. The range was small; the activity level was low; volume was very light. It was a quiet day coming off another big up week and heading into a holiday-shortened week. Because of this nothing changed since I posted the weekly report over the weekend.
This rally has come with much better internals than the October rally. The participation rate is better, and the circumstance (rates have been moved up, and the expectation is they’ll continue to move up) suggests Wall St. is absorbing higher rates.
Absent a major event in the world (there was a bomb blast at the Brussels airport that killed almost 30 people) the path of least resistance remains up, but in the near term, the market will tire soon. Don’t force trades right now. Trade only the good ones and know that a correction is due. If you buy now, you may only be holding for a couple days instead of a couple weeks. How you operate has to be linked with the state of the market (beginning of a move, end of a move, etc). More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
American Airlines Group (AAL +0.07%) , Expedia (EXPE +0.63%) , Priceline Group (PCLN +0.47%) and Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL +0.30%) are all down at least 1% in pre-market trading as travel and leisure stocks fall in the aftermath of the terrorist bombings in Brussels.
Yahoo (YHOO +0.85%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Citigroup.
Boyd Gaming (BYD -1.16%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Janney Montgomery with a 12-month price target of $25.
Avis Budget Group (CAR +0.03%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Sterne Agee CRT with a 12-month target price of $35.
WW Grainger (GWW +0.82%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Sterne Agee CRT with a 12-month target price of $274.
Carnival Cruise Line (CCL +0.30%) said Cuba granted approval for Carnival’s cruise ships to begin travel to Cuba starting May 1.
The CEO of Transocean (RIG -2.32%) said it will have to wait until at least 2019 before it can begin charging higher rig prices.
Waste Connections (WCN -0.21%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Sterne Agee CRT with a 12-month target price of $76.
Mattress Firm Holding (MFRM +0.95%) dropped over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 53 cents, weaker than consensus of 56 cents, and then lowered guidance on fiscal year adjusted EPS to $2.50-$2.60, below consensus of $2.73.
Deutsche Bank (DB -1.04%) lost 1% in after-hours trading after Moody’s Investors Service paced the bank on review for downgrade, citing revenue and expense headwinds that may delay an improvement in profitability.
NQ Mobile (NQ +1.60%) climbed over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted net revenue of $127.5 million, up +42 % y/y.
CalAmp (CAMP -1.28%) slumped over 7% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q4 revenue of $71 million, below a December 22 forecast of $73 million-$78 million, and below consensus of $75.9 million.
Adecoagro (AGRO +1.21%) slid 6% in after-hours trading after it announced it started a public offering of 12 million shares.
YY Inc. (YY -3.53%) rose nearly 3% un after-hours trading after it reported paying users were up +29.9% y/y to 3.2 million as of Dec 31.
MicroVision (MVIS -7.85%) dropped over 6% in after-hours trading after it said it plans a secondary offering of common stock.
Earnings and Economic Numbers from seekingalpha.com…
Monday’s Key Earnings
Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) -6.7% AH after reporting its worst-ever quarterly loss.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
9:00 FHFA House Price Index
9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
10:00 Richmond Fed Mfg.
12:30 PM Fed’s Evans speech
6:30 PM Fed’s Harker speech
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers