{"id":10398,"date":"2013-08-16T08:21:40","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T13:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=10398"},"modified":"2013-08-16T08:21:40","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T13:21:40","slug":"before-the-open-aug-16-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=10398","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Aug 16)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Options Expiration Day. <\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. India dropped 4%, Indonesia 2.5% and Australia, China, Japan and Singapore also fell noticeably. Europe is currently mixed. Austria, Italy, Spain and the Czech Republic are doing well; Greece and Switzerland are lagging. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down. <\/span>
\nAfter almost five weeks of range bound movement where dips got bought and rallies got sold, the market finally made a move. Thanks to news from WMT and CSCO it was to the downside. The indexes gapped down, sold off for another 45 minutes and then settled into a range near its lows for the rest of the day. It was the biggest down day since mid June. <\/span>
\nGiven the range, there certainly was a lot of pent up buying and selling interest, this release firmly puts the bears in control in the near term. This should not have come as a surprise to anyone. There have been multiple warnings the last couple weeks that told us to be cautious. We also have not had many good set ups to play. <\/span>
\nThe writing was on the wall…to play it safe and wait for the environment to improve. <\/span>
\nHere are the weekly index charts. Even if we have a simple reversion to the longer term trendlines, the S&P could drop to the low 1600’s – 50 points below yesterday’s close.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nI’d welcome such a move. Let’s have a good shakeout to set up a fall rally. I don’t have reason to believe THE top is in place, just a local top.<\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\nLinear Technology (LLTC -1.31%) was upgraded to “Overweight” from “Equal Weight” at Morgan Stanley who also raised its price target on the stock to $48 from $40.<\/span>
\nXilinx (XLNX -2.33%) was upgraded to “Overweight” from “Equal Weight” at Morgan Stanley who also raised its price target on the stock to $40 from $38.<\/span>
\nPandora (P -3.50%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” with a price target of $27 at Goldman.<\/span>
\nAnadarko (APC +0.25%) was upgraded to “Strong Buy” from “Buy” at ISI Group.<\/span>
\nAlcoa (AA unch) was downgraded to “Underperform” from “Neutral” at BofA\/Merrill.<\/span>
\nGeneral Mills (GIS -2.88%) was downgraded to “Underperform” from “Hold” at Jefferies.<\/span>
\nSTMicroelectronics (STM -1.52%) was downgraded to “Underweight” from “Neutral” at HSBC.<\/span>
\nJoS. A. Bank (JOSB -1.76%) fell 5% in after-hours trading after it lowered its Q2 EPS estimate to 49 cents-53 cents, well below consensus of 68 cents.<\/span>
\nGabelli reports 5.09% stake in Lennar (LEN +5.12%) .<\/span>
\nNordstrom (JWN -0.35%) fell over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS of 93 cents, stronger than consensus of 88 cents, but then lowered guidance on fiscal 2013 EPS view to $3.60-$3.70 from $3.65-$3.80, lower than consensus of $3.78.<\/span>
\nApplied Materials (AMAT -2.61%) reported Q3 adjusted EPS of 18 cents, weaker than consensus of 19 cents.<\/span>
\nDell (DELL -0.15%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of 25 cents, better than consensus of 24 cents.<\/span>
\nEarnings<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\nNotable earnings before today’s open: EJ<\/span>
\nNotable earnings after today’s close: none<\/span>
\ntoday’s <\/a>upgrades\/downgrades<\/a> from briefing.com<\/span>
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