{"id":720,"date":"2008-12-12T06:30:39","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T11:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=720"},"modified":"2008-12-12T06:30:39","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T11:30:39","slug":"before-the-open-155","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=720","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday.
\nThis is a bear market, right? About 30 minutes before the open, Nas 100 futures<\/b> are down 31.5 (2.65%) to trade at 1158.5 and SPX futures<\/b> are down 30 (3.43%) to trade at 844.5. They started selling off as soon as they started trading 15 min after yesterday\u2019s close; then they took another dump in the middle of the night.
\nThe Asian\/Pacific<\/b> markets closed mostly down with sizeable losses. Hong Kong and Japan lost more than 5%; Seoul and Indonesia more than 4%; China, Singapore and Taiwan more than 3%. Only India moved up slightly.
\nEurope<\/b>, which is still open for trading, is suffering 3-5% losses across the board. France, Amsterdam and Norway are down more than 5%; Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and London more than 4%; Belgium, Stockholm and Switzerland more than 3%.
\nThe losses are due to the Senate not approving the bailout<\/b> of the Big 3 (are they still big) automakers. Unless minds change quickly, bankruptcy is inevitable. This is a good thing. As you could imagine, GM<\/b> (GM) and Ford <\/b> (F) are down a bunch before the open.
\nEU leaders<\/b> on Friday backed a euro200 billion ($267 billion) economic stimulus package to ward off recession in the region’s 27 nations as new statistics highlighted just how deep a slowdown they are facing.
\nJapanese Prime Minister Taro Aso<\/b> on Friday announced a new 23 trillion yen ($255 billion) stimulus package to shore up his country’s economy, with measures to spur employment, encourage lending and inject capital into financial markets.
\nEx-Nasdaq chairman Bernard Madoff<\/b> has confessed to a massive fraud scheme that will cost investors at least $50B.
\nBank of America<\/b> (BAC) plans to cut up to 35,000 jobs over the next 3 years as it absorbs Merrill Lynch<\/b> (MER).
\nThe government says wholesale prices<\/b> sank 2.2% in November \u2013 the fourth monthly decline in a row. That is likely to raise fresh fears prices will keep on dropping, leading to a dangerous bout of deflation.
\nWoolworths<\/b> (London) administrators cut 700 jobs in distribution division, scaling down sale efforts.
\nFairchild Semiconductor <\/b> (FCS) said Friday it plans to cut 1,100 jobs, or about 12 percent of its work force, and reduced its revenue guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter.
\nDepartment-store operator Kohl’s<\/b> (KSS) said Friday it jointly acquired 46 Mervyns locations for about $6.25 million.
\nCanada-based Gildan<\/b> (GIL) cuts 400 jobs at Alabama, Virginia plants, moving apparel work to Honduras.
\nChemtura<\/b> (CEM) is cutting 5,000 jobs or 10% of its workers as demand drops.
\nCooper Tire<\/b> (CTB) says it has reached an agreement with union at its Texarkana, Ark., plant.
\nBristol-Myers Squibb<\/b> (BMY) to pay Exelixis<\/b> (EXEL) $195 million in cancer drug development deal.
\nPark Electrochemical<\/b> (PKE) to cut undisclosed number of jobs at Singapore subsidiary Nelco Products.
\nAlcatel-Lucent <\/b> (ALU) announces 1,000 job cuts as part of new CEO’s strategic turnaround plan.
\nElan<\/b> (ELN) is shutting down its New York and Tokyo offices and will eliminate an unspecified number of jogs as it realigns operations to focus on research.
\nLas Vegas Sands <\/b> (LVS) is cutting 200 casino workers on the Strip; part of $100 million yearly cost cuts.
\nUnited Technologies<\/b> (UTX) is sticking with its 2008 earnings outlook which is up 15% from the year-ago results.
\nCalamos Asset Management<\/b> (CLMS) said assets under management have nearly been halved this past year.
\nLegg Mason<\/b> (LM) reduced its exposure to securities issued by Structured Investment Vehicles by $1.7B, or 43%, through its sale of Axon Financial holdings.
\nGold<\/b> is down 0.39% and silver<\/b> is down 2.13%
\nCrude oil<\/b> is down 3.01 to trade at 44.97.
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UPGRADES<\/b><\/td>\n MHK, ANDE, CASY, MFC, HXM, URBN, IBKC, ACAS, IBKC <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DOWNGRADES<\/b><\/td>\n WAT, AGP, LECO, VARI, DRYS, EXPD, LMNX, FII, SAP, F, AXL, MGA, TRW, LEA, VE, FMX, SWK <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
EARNINGS<\/b>
\n<\/tr>\n
before the open<\/td>\nnone<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
during trading<\/td>\nnone <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
after the close<\/td>\nnone <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-
\nECONOMIC RELEASES<\/b>
\n8:30 Core PPI
\n8:30 PPI
\n8:30 Retail Sales
\n8:30 Retail Sales ex-auto
\n10:00 Business Inventories
\n10:00 Michigan Sentiment-Prel.
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. This is a bear market, right? About 30 minutes before the open, Nas 100 futures are down 31.5 (2.65%) to trade at 1158.5 and SPX futures are down 30 (3.43%) to trade at 844.5. They started selling off as soon as they started trading 15 min after yesterday\u2019s close; then they […]<\/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\/720"}],"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=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}