{"id":738,"date":"2008-12-01T06:30:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=738"},"modified":"2008-12-01T06:30:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-01T11:30:00","slug":"before-the-open-164","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=738","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
\nWe enter this new week with the market having rallied 5 consecutive days on declining volume with a gap down there near the low. This is not exactly bullish, so although the short term trend is up, being aggressive on the long side is a bad idea. Too bad the market will gap down a bunch at today\u2019s open \u2013 that makes playing a pullback harder.
\n35 minutes before the open, Nas 100 futures<\/b> are down 26 (2.2%) to trade at 1160 while SPX futures<\/b> are down 23.25 (2.6%) to trade at.872.
\nIn Asia\/Pacific<\/b>, the markets closed mixed with a downward bias. China, Hong Kong and Taiwan each rallied more than 1%. India and Singapore dropped more than 2% and Australia, Indonesia, Japan and Seoul fell more than 1%.
\nEurope<\/b> is currently down across the board. Belgium, Amsterdam and Norway are down more than 3% while Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Stockholm, Switzerland and London are down more than 2%.
\nThe selling pressure in the US<\/b> began in the middle of the night, so it has more to do with weakness overseas, not news out this morning.
\nGerman retail sales<\/b> in October was down 1.6% month over month.
\nGermany\u2019s state bank BayernLB<\/b> plans to cut 5,600 jobs — 29 percent of its total work force — to weather the global financial crisis.
\nUK home prices<\/b> have fallen 8.1% year over year.
\nChina\u2019s purchasing managers index<\/b> fell to a record low in October.
\nCar sales in Spain<\/b> plunge 50 percent in November from last year, second worst drop on record.
\nBudget airline Ryanair<\/b> (RYAAY) launched a new takeover bid for Aer Lingus<\/b>, seeking to capitalize on labor unrest at its Irish rival and Ireland’s economic difficulties.
\nAccording to BIGresearch, consumer spending<\/b> over Thanksgiving weekend was up 7.2% year over year and the number of people that visited stores and retail websites<\/b> increased 17% year over year. Don\u2019t ask how they count the number of people visiting stores; I\u2019ve never seen a turnstile at any front door.
\nSemiconductor Industry Association says chip sales<\/b> fell 2.4 percent in October from last year
\nCitigroup<\/b> (C) is buying Spanish construction company Sacyr Vallehermoso\u2019s<\/b> highway-operating unit, Itinere, to in a deal valued at nearly $10 billion. I guess this is what Citi is doing with part of their bailout money. They\u2019re also looking to sell its Japanese trust, NikkoCiti Trust and Banking<\/b>, estimated to be worth ~ $418 million.
\nGeneral Growth Properties<\/b> (GGP) has received a two-week extension on mortgage loans totaling $900 million, as the troubled shopping mall owner works to stave off bankruptcy and negotiate longer-term extensions with lenders.
\nAIG<\/b> (AIG) said it has agreed to sell its wealth management arm AIG Private Bank Ltd. to Aabar Investments PJSC of Abu Dhabi. No terms were disclosed.
\nHealth care products company Johnson & Johnson<\/b> (JNJ) says it will buy the medical products supplier Mentor<\/b> (MNT) for $1.07 billion in a move to boost its presence in cosmetic and reconstructive medicine.
\nParametric Technology<\/b> (PMTC) said its board of directors doubled the product development software maker’s buyback program.
\nAccording to a Wall Street Journal article, Morgan Stanley<\/b> (MS) could be considering acquiring regional banks that overlap its existing brokerage and asset management clients.
\nCell Therapeutics<\/b> (CTIC) has received FDA priority review for expanded use of cancer drug Zevalin.
\nHawaiian Telcom Communications<\/b>, the largest telephone company on the Hawaiian islands, has filed for Ch. 11 bankruptcy protection.
\nMoody\u2019s has cut the corporate family rating of Tata Motors<\/b> (TTM) from Ba2 to B1.
\nSTMicroelectroncis<\/b> (STM) has cut its Q4 revenue guidance, citing slower billing and reduced demand and order push-outs.
\nGold<\/b> is down 4.17% and silver<\/b> is down 8.97%.
\nCrude oil<\/b> is down 2.85 to trade at 51.58.
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UPGRADES<\/b><\/td>\n TWX, MPW, NOA, HPT, RATE, TOL, ACL, PGI, PRU, AWC <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DOWNGRADES<\/b><\/td>\n DSX, ARA, ADM, HST, CNQ, SU, CPE, BEE, LTD, MTL, ITRN, AER, ACH <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
EARNINGS<\/b>
\n<\/tr>\n
before the open<\/td>\nBE, NRGY, UNCA <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
during trading<\/td>\nnone <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
after the close<\/td>\nLTON, SNDA, ZOLT <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-
\nECONOMIC RELEASES<\/b>
\n10:00 Construction Spending
\n10:00 ISM Index
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. We enter this new week with the market having rallied 5 consecutive days on declining volume with a gap down there near the low. This is not exactly bullish, so although the short term trend is up, being aggressive on the long side is a […]<\/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\/738"}],"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=738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}