{"id":751,"date":"2008-11-17T06:30:17","date_gmt":"2008-11-17T11:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=751"},"modified":"2008-11-17T06:30:17","modified_gmt":"2008-11-17T11:30:17","slug":"before-the-open-174","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=751","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
\nIt will be another weak open for the cash market. Thirty minute before the open, Nas 100 futures<\/b> are down 9 (0.78%) and SPX futures<\/b> are down 9.25 (1.1%). These numbers aren\u2019t horrible relative to last Friday\u2019s close, but compared to their overnight highs which were hit just a couple hours ago, they are indeed pretty bad.
\nThe Asian\/Pacific<\/b> markets were mostly weak although there weren\u2019t many big moves. On the upside, China gained 2.2%. On the downside, India lost 1% and Indonesia and Australia fell more than 2%.
\nEurope<\/b> is down across the board. Spain is down 3.3%, Norway and Switzerland down more than 2%, and Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Amsterdam, Italy and London are down more than 1%.
\nJapan\u2019s<\/b> Q3 GDP was negative for the second consecutive quarter \u2013 that\u2019s the technical definition of a recession. It\u2019s the first time since 2001.
\nGM<\/b> is up 12% before the open \u2013they\u2019ll be raising $230 million by selling their 3% stake in Suzuki.
\nAccording to CNBC, Citigroup<\/b> (C) plans to cut 50,000 jobs. This is on top of the 23,000 they\u2019re already cut.
\nLowe\u2019s<\/b> (LOW) said Q3 profits fell 24% on slow spending. This was better than Wall Street expected.
\nA Soleil Securities analyst cut her price target for Disney<\/b> (DIS) in half \u2013 from 40 to 23.
\nMylan<\/b> (MYL) said Monday the Food and Drug Administration tentatively approved the drug developer’s generic capsule version of Wyeth’s<\/b> (WYE) antidepressant Effexor XR.
\nShares of JP Morgan<\/b> (JPM) fell slightly in premarket trading, a day after Britain’s Sunday Telegraph reported the New York-based bank was poised to 3,000 jobs amid the ongoing credit crisis.
\nBiotechnology company United Therapeutics<\/b> (UTHR) said Monday it is licensing rights to sell Eli Lilly\u2019s<\/b> (LLY) erectile dysfunction drug Cialis as a hypertension treatment in the U.S.
\nGoldman Sachs<\/b> (GS) said its top executives are foregoing bonuses in 2008, while a Citi Investment Research analyst became the latest to cut his earnings estimates for the bank.
\nBerkshire Hathaway<\/b> (BRK-A) more than quadruples stake in ConocoPhillips<\/b> (COP).
\nUBS AG<\/b> (UBS) said Monday that starting next year it will stop making bonus payments to its chairman and that other top executives will be penalized if the bank performs badly to discourage irresponsible risk-taking.
\nThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration will open three offices in China this week in an unprecedented effort to improve the safety of exports headed to America amid recurring product safety scares.
\nCovidien’s<\/b> (COV) fiscal 4th-quarter profit surges, but stronger US dollar prompts weak outlook
\nGenworth<\/b> (GNW) to buy InterBank as part of plan to tap government’s $700 billion relief program.
\nThere\u2019s lots of talk about the ultimate fate of the US auto industry. Bernanke and Paulson appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, so comments could be made as to whether the auto makers will get any of the $700 billion bail-out money.
\nVery soon it will be do or die time for the market. Last Thursday\u2019s massive rally was either a one-day wonder and new lows will be made soon, or Friday\u2019s late-day sell-off was just some forced liquidation by a couple large funds, and the market will soon move up.
\nGold<\/b> is down 5.40 (0.73%) and silver<\/b> is down 0.20 (2.11%).
\nCrude<\/b> oil is down 1.46 to trade at $55.58.
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UPGRADES<\/b><\/td>\nMCD, PRXL, YUM, COGT <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
DOWNGRADES<\/b><\/td>\nLRN, MDTH, CBS, VIA.B, FCX, WCC, A, WFR, AA, CB, MTL, FMX, MDZ, DIS <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
EARNINGS<\/b>
\n<\/tr>\n
before the open<\/td>\nCOV, DHT, LOW, NSSC, ORBK, RTLX, TGT <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
during trading<\/td>\n none<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
after the close<\/td>\nCNTF, CTRP, IMCL, JMBA, KONG, NUAN, SGK, NCTY, XFML <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

—————————————————————————————-
\nECONOMIC RELEASES<\/b>
\n8:30 NY Empire State Index
\n9:15 Capacity Utilization
\n9:15 Industrial Production
\n—————————————————————————————-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. It will be another weak open for the cash market. Thirty minute before the open, Nas 100 futures are down 9 (0.78%) and SPX futures are down 9.25 (1.1%). These numbers aren\u2019t horrible relative to last Friday\u2019s close, but compared to their overnight highs which […]<\/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\/751"}],"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=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}