Before the Open (Aug 8)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed up across-the-board. Japan rallied 2.4%, and Hong Kong and Singapore did better than 1%. China, Australia, South Korea and Taiwan also did well. Europe is currently mostly up. Turkey is up more than 2%, the Czech Republic more than 1%, and Austria, Germany, Finland, Russia, Spain and Italy are also doing well. Futures 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 down. Bonds are down.
As is typically the case on a Monday morning, I don’t have much to say that wasn’t said in the weekly report published over the weekend.
In it I said if the market follows through on the S&P 500’s breakout and tries to leg up, I’ll want to see improvement from some of the breadth indicators. Some are diverging from the price action; others have flattened out. This is fine when the market rests, but when it tries to leg up, I want to see breadth keep up.
Oil is looking better to me. In my eyes it’s worth having some exposure. There was a cluster of support down near 39-40, and I’m seeing improvement elsewhere.
That’s it for now. No need to repeat the weekly report. I’m behind responding to email because I had to very quickly leave town Saturday morning and didn’t return until late last night. I’ll catch up today.
Stock headlines from barchart.com…
U.S. Concrete (USCR -4.15%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Suntrust Robinson with a price target of $75.
EOG Resources (EOG +7.03%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Wunderlich Securities.
Wyerhaeuser (WY +0.70%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at DA Davidson.
Level 3 Communications (LVLT +0.59%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at BTIG with a price target of $63.
JP Morgan Chase (JPM +2.70%) is down -0.5% in pre-market trading after it was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Citigroup.
Mattress Firm Holding (MFRM +1.47%) surged 100% in pre-market trading after Steinhoff International Holdings NV bought the company for $2.4 billion.
Delta Air Lines (DAL +3.09%) fell nearly 2% in pre-market trading after a computer-system failure grounded all of the carrier’s flights across the U.S.
U.S. Steel (X +1.92%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading after the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) said that U.S. Steel can proceed with its case that charges Chinese manufacturers of carbon and alloy steel of misappropriating U.S. Steel trade secrets that a U.S. judge had put on hold July 6.
Berkshire Hathaway ({=BRK/B=}) lost almost 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 operating EPS of $2,803, below consensus of $2,911.
Rackspace Holdings (RAX +10.24%) rose nearly 3% in after-hours trading, adding to last Friday’s +10% surge, on reports that Apollo Global Management LLC is reportedly offering $3.5 billion for the company.
Lantheus Holdings (LNTH +54.24%) dropped almost 3% in after-hours trading after the company registered 17.8 million shares for sale for top share holder Avista Capital Partners.
Today’s Economic Calendar
10:00 Labor market condition index
12:30 PM TD Ameritrade IMX
Today’s Earnings here
Other…
today’s upgrades/downgrades from briefing.com
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers