{"id":11087,"date":"2017-12-20T09:11:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T14:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=11087"},"modified":"2017-12-20T09:11:43","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T14:11:43","slug":"before-the-open-dec-20-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=11087","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 20)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Good morning. Happy Wednesday. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The <strong>Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mixed and little changed. Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia posted gains while China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Indonesia posted losses. <strong>Europe, Africa and the Middle East<\/strong> are currently split. Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Austria and the Czech Republic are up; Germany, Spain and Italy are down. Futures in the <strong>States<\/strong> point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><!--more-->The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> FedEx (FDX +0.26%) climbed over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $3.18, higher than consensus of $2.88, and then raised guidance on full-year adjusted EPS to $12.70 to $13.30 from a prior view of $12.00 to $12.80, better than consensus of $12.47.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Red Hat (RHT -0.45%) dropped 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 adjusted gross margin of 86.2%, below consensus of 86.5%.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> United Continental Holdings (UAL -0.20%) gained almost 1% in after-hours trading after it was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at Buckingham Research Group with a price target of $81.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Micron Technology (MU +0.62%) rose nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $2.45, better than consensus of $2.21, and said it sees Q2 adjusted EPS of $2.51 to $2.65, well above consensus of $2.04.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Ionis Pharmaceuticals (IONS -2.60%) gained 2% in after-hours trading after it announced a collaboration with Biogen to identify new antisense oligonucleotide drug candidates for spinal muscular atrophy.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> REV Group (REVG -0.24%) dropped over 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 net sales of $683.9 million, weaker than consensus of $705.6 million.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Aramark (ARMK +0.96%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Stifel with a 12-month target price of $50.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Steelcase (SCS -0.69%) slid 7% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q4 adjusted EPS of 14 cents to 18 cents, below consensus of 22 cents.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Metropolitan Bank Holding (MCB -6.30%) rose 1% in after-hours trading after Piper Jaffray boosted its EPS estimate for MCB by 6% due to its exposure to a cryptocurrency exchange.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Stitch Fix (SFIX +3.82%) tumbled over 10% in after-hours trading after it said it expects Q2 adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization will be $11.5 million to $15.5 million, the mid-point below consensus of $15.5 million, as it spends more for advertising and customer growth.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Catalyst Biosciences (CBIO -5.77%) fell 7% in after-hours trading after it announced a proposed public offering of common stock, although no size was given.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> TherapeuticsMD (TXMD -6.37%) dropped nearly 8% in after-hours trading after the FDA set a 6-month timeline to review TXMD&#8217;s resubmission of its TX-004HR application, longer than the 2-months analysts had anticipated.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Tuesday&#8217;s Key Earnings<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> FedEx (NYSE:FDX) +2.6% AH lifted by a strong outlook.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Micron (NASDAQ:MU) +6.4% AH after topping estimates.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) -3.5% AH despite a Q3 beat, upside guidance.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Today&#8217;s Economic Calendar<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 Existing Home Sales<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/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=\"http:\/\/www.morningstar.com\/earnings\/earnings-calendar.aspx\">Earnings<\/a><\/span> from Morningstar<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">this week&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/mam.econoday.com\/\">Economic Numbers\/Reports<\/a><\/span> powered by ECONODAY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning. Happy Wednesday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed and little changed. Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia posted gains while China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Indonesia posted losses. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently split. Turkey, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Austria and the Czech Republic are up; Germany, Spain and Italy are down. Futures [&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\/11087"}],"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=11087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}