Before the Open (Jul 15)

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Options Expiration Day.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. None of the indexes gained 1%, but Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan did well. Europe is currently mixed and little moved. The Czech Republic is up more than 1%; Poland and Sweden are also doing well. Greece is down more than 1%; Denmark, Hungary, Spain, Italy and Portugal are also down. Futures in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
—————
Join our email list – get technical research reports sent directly to you.
—————
The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are up small amounts. Gold and silver are up small amounts. Bonds are down.
The S&P has moved up 10 of 12 days, and every day this week it has pushed to a new all-time high. Barring a massive collapse, the biggest 3-week win streak since the February bottom will be in place. No matter how you look at it, the market is doing well.
The S&P has made good progress towards my 2300-2400 target. I’ve been right about the direction and the fact that the market “won’t let you in,” but I’ve been somewhat wrong about the character. I was expecting more of a slow churn that cast doubt for both the bulls and bears. Instead we’ve gotten a near-vertical move.
Commodities remain the place to be. Gold and silver remain in great shape. I’m not a big fan of oil here. I think odds are decent it’ll perk back up in the future, but in the near term I’m seeing broken charts and some action not indicative of a strong group. Steel stocks and other industrial metals are doing well.
What hasn’t been tradable are stocks from the NDX and OEX. Most of those stocks are just bouncing around in big ranges. The have flat moving averages and aren’t trending. If these stocks catch a bid and start trending, 2300-2400 will happen easily.
Bias remains to the long side, but the market is in nose-bleed territory. More after the open.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
St. Jude Medical (STJ +0.35%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Wedbush with a 12-month price target of $84.
Delta Air Lines (DAL +3.59%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Evercore ISI with a 12-month target price of $50.
AMC Networks (AMCX +0.60%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS with a 12-month price target of $57.
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG +0.32%) was downgraded to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ at Morgan Stanley who said a “full sales recovery to prior peak volumes could take years.”
Nvidia (NVDA +1.02%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Mizuho Securities USA with a 12-month price target of $60.
Voyager Therapeutics (VYGR +1.02%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Stifel with a 12-month price target of $33.
Resources Connection (RECN -2.70%) gained nearly 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 EPS of 23 cents, above consensus of 21 cents.
Qualcomm (QCOM +0.09%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital Markets.
Discover Financial (DFS +1.29%) said it will repurchase $2.5 billion of its stock over the next five quarters, more than the $1.95 billion the company said it would repurchase on June 26.
Alere (ALR +0.20%) fell 2% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q1 revenue of $573 million-$593 million, below consensus of $598.9 million.
Fairmount Santrol Holdings (FMSA +0.74%) tumbled 6% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q2 revenue of $113 million-$115 million, well below consensus of $135.6 million.
ZIOPHARM Oncology (ZIOP +0.35%) fell 12% in after-hours trading after it abandoned its bid to raise $40 million-$50 million this week.
Thursday’s Key Earnings
BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) -0.7% as active money turned passive.
Delta (NYSE:DAL) +3.6% with lower fuel costs boosting earnings.
JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) +1.5% after beating expectations.
Today’s Economic Calendar
8:30 Consumer Price Index
8:30 Retail Sales
8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
9:15 Industrial Production
10:00 Business Inventories
10:00 Consumer Sentiment
1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count
10:00 Fed’s Williams: Monetary Policy
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers