{"id":10074,"date":"2016-12-02T08:50:16","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T13:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=10074"},"modified":"2016-12-02T08:50:16","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T13:50:16","slug":"before-the-open-dec-2d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=10074","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Employment Numbers Day. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly down. Australia, India and Hong Kong dropped more than 1%; China, South Korea and Taiwan were also weak. Indonesia did well. Europe<\/strong> is currently mostly down. Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy are down more than 1%; Austria, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain are also weak. Futures in the States<\/strong> point towards a down open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\n List of Indexes and ETFs – <\/strong> here<\/a>
\n—————<\/span>
\n The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are down. Gold is up; silver is down. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n The emoplyment numbers are the last major data to be released before next week’s FOMC meeting. Here they are…<\/span>
\n unemployment rate: 4.6% (was 4.9% last month)
\n nonfarm payrolls: +178K
\n private payrolls:
\n average workweek:
\n hourly wages: up
\n labor participation rate: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n September and October job gains both revised down by 2000.<\/span>
\n In the past good news was bad news because it increased the odds the Fed would raise rates. Now a rate increase is a virtual guarantee, so good news is actually good news – it signals things in the country are going well.<\/span>
\n The headline number (the employment rate drops from 4.9% to 4.6%) is possible because several hundred thousand left the work force. It still counts. A little improvemnt here, a little improvement there. These numbers get revised several times and don’t become official for about six month. Still they hint at things. <\/span>
\n S&P futures dropped a little after the news. <\/span>
\n After 15 straight up days, the Russell 2000 will try to avoid a 5-day losing streak this week. Overall I like the market, but I’m concerned big-cap tech stocks are so weak. It’s not just that Apple, Amazon, Google, Intel, and Alibaba are weak; they’re moving down under their 50-day moving averages. Purely from a technical standpoint, their weakness doesn’t seem to be temporary. Can the market move up without these stocks? It’s doubtful it can move up much. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Lululemon Athletica (LULU -0.81%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Hold’ at Canaccord Genuity with a 12-month target price of $44.<\/span>
\n Starbucks (SBUX +0.93%) dropped over 3% in after-hours trading after CEO Howard Schultz stepped down as CEO and Lieutenant Kevin Johnson will take over effective April 3, 2017.<\/span>
\n Five Below (FIVE +1.32%) jumped over 10% in after-hours trading after it raised guidance on the low end of its full-year EPS view to $1.29-$1.32 from a prior view of $1.28-$1.32.<\/span>
\n Ambarella (AMBA -0.21%) fell over 5% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q4 revenue of $84 million-$87 million, below consensus of $90.3 million.<\/span>
\n Fairmont Santrol Holdings (FMSA -1.14%) slid nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it announced a secondary offering of 15 million shares of common stock.<\/span>
\n Ulta Salon (ULTA -0.81%) jumped over 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of $1.40, better than consensus of $1.38.<\/span>
\n Exxon Mobile (XOM -0.07%) was rated new ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital Markets with a target price of $78.<\/span>
\n Zumiez (ZUMZ -1.01%) fell 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Nov comparable sales up +5.7%, weaker than estimates of +9.7%, and then said it sees Q4 EPS of 60 cents-66 cents, on the low side of estimates of 65 cents.<\/span>
\n Equinix (EQIX -2.76%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Guggenheim Securities with a 12-month target price of $390.<\/span>
\n SM Energy (SM +0.78%) slid nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it announced a public offering of 8 million shares of common stock.<\/span>
\n Allegheny Technologies (ATI +1.25%) declined 3% in after-hours trading after it said it will suspend its quarterly dividend effective immediately.<\/span>
\n Smith & Wesson Holdings (SWHC +2.79%) dropped 6% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on Q3 adjusted EPS to 52 cents-57 cents, below consensus of 61 cents.<\/span>
\n CyrusOne (CONE -4.17%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at Guggenheim Securities with a 12-month target price of $50.<\/span>
\n Student Transportation (STB +1.58%) was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at Raymond James with a 12-month target price of $6.50.<\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 8:30 Non-farm payrolls
\n 8:45 Fed’s Reserve Gov. Lael Brainard speech
\n 12:30 PM Daniel Tarullo speech
\n 1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nToday’s Earnings here<\/a><\/span>
\nOther<\/strong>…<\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a> from briefing.com<\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Employment Numbers Day. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Australia, India and Hong Kong dropped more than 1%; China, South Korea and Taiwan were also weak. Indonesia did well. Europe is currently mostly down. Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy are down more than 1%; Austria, Norway, Sweden, […]<\/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":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}