Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia did well. Europe currently leans to the upside. London, Russia and the Czech Republic are up more than 1%; Norway and Finland are also doing well. Greece, Poland and Sweden are down. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
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LB Weekly – the indexes, the breadth indicators, a look at the big picture
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The dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down.
As is typically the case on a Monday morning, I don’t have anything to add to the weekly report published over the weekend.
Last week was a quiet one. Volume was light, the range was small and the activity level was low. Most indicators support the market’s recent strength; a couple are starting to diverge from the underlying price action.
Last week’s most notable event was the weak employment numbers which prompted Wall St. to believe the Fed may not raise rates at next week’s FOMC meeting. This caused the dollar the crash and gold & silver to surge. Otherwise there was nothing truly outstanding. Janet Yellen speaks today, so Wall St. will continue dissecting her every word in an attempt to predict what the Fed may do next week.
Otherwise earnings season is over, and summer is kicking into high gear. Will the market be held hostage to the Fed the next couple weeks? More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
Wal-mart (WMT -0.11%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Jeffries with a 12-month price target of $82.
Harley-Davidson (HOG -0.78%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.
Autohome (ATHM +0.93%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Brean Capital with a 12-month price target of $31.
Sturm Ruger & Co. (RGR -4.83%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at BB&T Capital Markets.
Barracuda Networks (CUDA -0.23%) was downgraded to ‘Market Underperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at JMP Securities.
Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ -2.08%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs with a price target of $196.
Tyson Foods (TSN +0.97%) and Pilgrim’s Pride (PPC +0.24%) were both downgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Outperform’ at BMO Capital Markets.
Synopsys (SNPS -0.71%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at RBC Capital Markets with a 12-month price target of $64.
American Equity Investment (AEL -3.29%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase.
Sempra Energy (SRE +2.56%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ and off the ‘Conviction List’ at Goldman Sachs.
Today’s Economic Calendar
2:15 Fed’s Rosengren speech
8:30 Gallup US Consumer Spending Measure
10:00 Labor market condition index
12:30 PM TD Ameritrade IMX
12:30 PM Janet Yellen speech
2:00 PM Janet Yellen in a discussion with Fed’s Harker
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers