{"id":10429,"date":"2017-05-09T07:49:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T12:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=10429"},"modified":"2017-05-09T07:49:48","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T12:49:48","slug":"before-the-open-may-9-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=10429","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (May 9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mixed. Hong Kong did well; Australia and the Philippines closed down. Europe<\/strong> currently leans to the upside. Turkey and Greece are up more than 1%; the UK, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Austria and Sweden are also doing well. Futures in the States<\/strong> point towards a positive open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\n VIDEO: <\/strong>The Trend is Your Friend<\/a>
\n—————<\/span>
\n The dollar is up. Oil is down; copper is up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down. <\/span>
\n Apple (AAPL) was yesterday’s big story. It jumped 2.7%, which is a pretty common move, but for the largest publicly traded company, it’s a huge 1-day move. Apple’s market cap is now north of $800 billion. Becoming the first trillion-dollar company seems like a matter of when, not if. <\/span>
\n\"\"
\n Also of note yesterday was the VIX, which closed below $10 for the first time in 10 years and at its lowest level since 1993. To me this is the new normal – except during hysterical times, which don’t happen much. There has been massive inflows into index funds in recent years. This removes a lot of volatility from the market. Also, so much of the trading volume is just computers trading back and forth with each other – the machines, which are far less emotional than us human beings, keep things in check. We just don’t have wild swings any more – not intraday or on the daily charts. Here’s the daily VIX chart going back to September. <\/span>
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\n The low VIX reading has been accompanied – to no surprise – by an historically small 10-day S&P range. Even with last Friday’s late-day jump, the S&P has traded in a 0.91% range going back two weeks. Since 1970, this is the third-smallest. Somehow, some way, while getting decent movement from individual stocks, virtually everything has canceled out and resulted in the market sitting tight in a small area. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Micron (MU +1.48%) is down 3% in pre-market trading after it was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.<\/span>
\n Tyson Foods (TSN +0.57%) reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.10, slightly below consensus of $1.02.<\/span>
\n Varian Medical Systems (VAR +0.60%) is up over 2% in pre-market trading after it was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup with a price target of $119.<\/span>
\n Fluor (FLR -4.78%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Canaccord Genuity with a price target of $55.<\/span>
\n Louisiana-Pacific (LPX -3.61%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at DA Davidson & Co.<\/span>
\n United Rentals (URI +1.49%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘In-Line’ at Evercore ISI.<\/span>
\n NXP Semiconductors NV (NXPI -0.19%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Nomura\/Instinet.<\/span>
\n LyondellBasell Industries NV (LYB +3.37%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Buy’ at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Temper Sealy International (TPX +2.31%) was upgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Sell’ at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.<\/span>
\n Berkshire Hathaway ({=BRK\/B=}) fell slightly in after-hours trading after its Q1 operating EPS was a little below consensus due to disappointing insurance results.<\/span>
\n Delta (DAL +0.12%) is reportedly considering a delay in a $3 billion Airbus order.<\/span>
\n Williams Cos (WMB +2.44%) was raised to “Outperform” from “Market Perform” by Wells Fargo.<\/span>
\n Monday’s Key Earnings<\/strong>
\n Hertz (NYSE:HTZ) -17.7% AH on a big earnings miss.
\n JD.com (NASDAQ:JD) +7.7% following a surprise profit.
\n Marriott (NYSE:MAR) +3.9% AH beating estimates.
\n Pandora (NYSE:P) +2.9% AH reviewing strategic options.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 6:00 NFIB Small Business Optimism Index
\n 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
\n 10:00 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey
\n 10:00 Wholesale Trade
\n 1:00 PM Results of $24B, 3-Year Note Auction<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nOther<\/strong>…<\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a> from briefing.com<\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span> from Morningstar
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers\/Reports<\/a><\/span> powered by ECONODAY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Tuesday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. Hong Kong did well; Australia and the Philippines closed down. Europe currently leans to the upside. Turkey and Greece are up more than 1%; the UK, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Austria and Sweden are also doing well. Futures in the States point […]<\/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\/10429"}],"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=10429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}