{"id":696,"date":"2008-12-29T06:30:29","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T11:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=696"},"modified":"2008-12-29T06:30:29","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T11:30:29","slug":"before-the-open-143","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=696","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday.
\nThe Asian\/Pacific<\/b> markets closed mostly up. Singapore gained more than 3%, India more than 2% and Hong Kong and Australia more than 1%. China closed flat.
\nEurope<\/b> is currently up across the board. Belgium, Norway and London are up 2% or more, Austria, Germany and Switzerland are up more than 1%.
\n40 minutes before the open, futures<\/b> here in the States are mixed. Nas 100<\/b> is up 2.50 (0.21%) to trade at 1191 and SPX<\/b> is up 0.25 (0.03%) to trade at 869.25.
\nOil<\/b> has jumped for the second consecutive day to above $40 due to widening conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.
\nUK kids clothing retailer Adams<\/b> is on the brink of going into a form of bankruptcy.
\nKuwait’s government<\/b> on Sunday scrapped a $17.4 billion joint venture with U.S. petrochemical giant Dow Chemical<\/b> (DOW) after criticism from lawmakers that could have led to a political crisis in this small oil-rich state.
\nRohm & Haas<\/b> (ROH) says their proposed acquisition by Dow Chemical will not be impacted by the canceled Kuwait deal.
\nGM supplier Delphi<\/b> (DPHIQ.PK) has suspended work at a factory in China due to shrinking demand.
\nPrinceton Review Inc. <\/b> said Monday that it will sell its K-12 Services unit to a CORE Projects & Technologies Ltd. <\/b> subsidiary for $9.5 million in cash.
\nEgg producer Cal-Maine<\/b> (CALM) said its Q2 profit fell 32% on a slowdown in sales to egg-product makers and the food service industry while feed costs remain high.
\nAccording to the New York Times, the FDIC is selling IndyMac<\/b> to a group of private-equity firms and a hedge fund.
\nFrontier Communications<\/b> (FTR) has agreed to license interactive voice technology from Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing LP as part of a patent litigation settlement, the companies said Monday.
\nStruggling retailer Parent Co. <\/b> said it has voluntarily filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection and will consider selling some or all of its operations.
\nSmithfield Foods<\/b> (SFD), Tyson Foods <\/b> (TSN) and Cargill<\/b> are among the companies named in Mexico\u2019s suspension of meat imports from 30 US processing plants.
\nWal-Mart<\/b> (WMT) will begin selling Apple\u2019s<\/b> (APPL) iPhone 3G at nearly 2,500 stores beginning Sunday. They\u2019re only the second independent retailer (Best Buy is the other) to sell the phone.
\nGold<\/b> is up 1.8% and silver<\/b> is up 4.9%.
\nCrude oil<\/b> is up 2.27 to trade at 39.98.
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UPGRADES<\/b><\/td>\n SPF <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DOWNGRADES<\/b><\/td>\n LGF, CWT, DOW, HON, CHTR, FPL <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
EARNINGS<\/b>
\n<\/tr>\n
before the open<\/td>\n none <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
during trading<\/td>\nnone <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
after the close<\/td>\n RICK <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-
\nECONOMIC RELEASES<\/b>
\nnone
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Singapore gained more than 3%, India more than 2% and Hong Kong and Australia more than 1%. China closed flat. Europe is currently up across the board. Belgium, Norway and London are up 2% or more, Austria, Germany and Switzerland are up more than 1%. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}