{"id":10133,"date":"2017-01-03T08:56:51","date_gmt":"2017-01-03T13:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=10133"},"modified":"2017-01-03T08:56:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T13:56:51","slug":"before-the-open-jan-3-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=10133","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jan 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Good morning. Happy Monday. Happy New Years. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The <strong>Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly up. China and Australia rallied more than 1%; South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore also did well. <strong>Europe<\/strong> is currently up across-the-board. Russia is up more than 2%; Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Greece are up more than 1%; the UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic are also doing well. Futures in the <strong>States<\/strong> point towards a big gap up open for the cash market. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><!--more--><strong>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\n<a style=\"font-weight: bold; font-size: medium;\" href=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/pdfs\/LB%20weekly%2020170101.pdf\">LB Weekly<\/a> &#8211; the indexes, the breadth indicators, a look at the big picture<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The dollar is up. Oil is up big; copper is up. Gold is flat; silver is up. Bonds are down. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 2016 ended with a whimper (biggest down week since the election), and 2017 will start with a bang. In <a href=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/pdfs\/LB%20weekly%2020170101.pdf\">LB Weekly<\/a>, published over the weekend, I talked about how New Years can act as a major news event. For tax reasons, investors will either buy or sell right before the end of a year or right at the beginning of the next year. It doesn&#8217;t matter what the charts or indicators say. New Years isn&#8217;t a news item per se, but it can act like one in the sense that the date can trump the charts. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The Dow will start the year 240 points from 20K.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Oil is trading at a new high premarket.<\/span><br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/i\/cl010317.png\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The dollar is starting the year with a big gain and is back near resistance. <\/span><br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/i\/usd010317.png\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> For now it looks like a continuation of last year&#8217;s trend. But remember last January was the single-worst January in history, and the year ended with the biggest post-election rally in 88 years. January isn&#8217;t always very telling. Here is the performance of the first 28 days of each year going back to the 20&#8217;s.<\/span><br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/i\/jan2016010317.png\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Overall trend is up. Things have softened in the near term. Let&#8217;s see if New Years causes investors to forget about how last year ended and if the lagging breadth indicators can right themselves soon. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Disney (DIS -0.33%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at Evercore ISI with a 12-month target price of $120.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Facebook (FB -1.12%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Aegis Capital with a 12-month target price of $150.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> QEP Resources (QEP -1.60%) was upgraded to &#8216;Outperform&#8217; from &#8216;Market Perform&#8217; at FBR Capital Markets with a 12-month target price of $20.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> eBay (EBAY -0.97%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Aegis Capital with a 12-month target price of $36.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 21st Century Fox (FOXA -0.85%) was upgraded to &#8216;Outperform&#8217; from &#8216;Market Perform&#8217; at Wells Fargo Securities.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Boot Barn Holdings (BOOT -1.34%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at B Riley with a price target of $15.50.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> CR Bard (BCR +0.24%) was upgraded to &#8216;Overweight&#8217; from &#8216;Equal-Weight&#8217; at Morgan Stanley with a price target of $260.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> CenturyLink (CTL -1.04%) was upgraded to &#8216;Overweight&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at JPMorgan Chase with a 12-month target price of $28.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Verizon Communications (VZ -0.67%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at Citigroup.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Avis Budget Group (CAR -1.40%) was rated a new &#8216;Overweight&#8217; at Consumer Edge Research with a price target of $45.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Wright Medical Group NV (WMGI -0.69%) was downgraded to &#8216;Neutral&#8217; from &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Guggenheim Securities.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Cardinal Health (CAH -0.53%) was downgraded to &#8216;Neutral&#8217; from &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Mizuho Securities USA was a target price of $79.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Xilinx (XLNX -0.61%) was downgraded to &#8216;Reduce&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at Nomura with a 12-month target price of $45.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Today&#8217;s Economic Calendar<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 Construction Spending<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 2:00 PM Gallup US ECI<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Today&#8217;s Earnings <a href=\"http:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/earnings\/upcoming\">here<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Other<\/strong>&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">today&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.briefing.com\/investor\/calendars\/upgrades-downgrades\/\">upgrades\/downgrades<\/a> from briefing.com<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">this week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.briefing.com\/investor\/calendars\/earnings\/2016\/12\/19-23\/\">Earnings<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">this week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.briefing.com\/investor\/calendars\/economic\/2016\/12\/19-23\">Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning. Happy Monday. Happy New Years. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. China and Australia rallied more than 1%; South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore also did well. Europe is currently up across-the-board. Russia is up more than 2%; Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Greece are up more than 1%; the UK, France, Italy, Spain [&hellip;]<\/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\/10133"}],"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=10133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}