{"id":11437,"date":"2018-02-26T08:42:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T13:42:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=11437"},"modified":"2018-02-26T08:42:01","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T13:42:01","slug":"before-the-open-feb-26-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=11437","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Feb 26)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly up. Japan, China, India, Australia and Thailand led the way; Indonesia was weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East<\/strong> lean to the upside. France, Turkey, Denmark, South Africa, Finland, Russia, Hungary and the Netherlands are doing well; Greece is weak. Futures in the States<\/strong> point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\n ESSAY: <\/strong>Three Steps to Epiphany<\/a>
\n—————<\/span>
\n The dollar is down. Bitcoin is up. Oil is down slightly; copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n United Parcel Service (UPS +0.50%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Loop Capital Markets with a 12-month target price of $131.<\/span>
\n HP Inc (HPQ +3.46%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase with a 12-month target price of $28.<\/span>
\n Guess? (GES +1.35%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at B Riley FBR.<\/span>
\n American Water (AWK +2.40%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ with a price target of $88.<\/span>
\n General Mills (GIS -3.59%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Hold’ at Societe Generale with a target price of $48.<\/span>
\n Mattel (MAT unch) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Hold’ at Jeffries with a target price of $13.<\/span>
\n Halliburton (HAL +2.80%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Albemarle ({=ALB was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal-Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.<\/span>
\n U.S. metals producers rallied in after-hours trading Friday after President Trump said he wants to impose the harshest tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum recommended by the Commerce Department. U.S. Steel (X +1.26%) rose 3%, AK Steel (AKS -2.14%) jumped 3%, Nucor (NUE -0.01%) rose nearly 2%, Steel Dynamics (STLD -1.10%) gained 1%, Century Aluminum (CENX -3.77%) rose 2% and Alcoa (AA -2.73%) gained over 1%.<\/span>
\n Empire State Realty (ESRT -0.45%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Stifel.<\/span>
\n Mack-Cali (CLI +4.35%) was upgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Sell’ at Stifel.<\/span>
\n Thursday’s Key Earnings<\/strong>
\n Apache (NYSE:APA) -6.3% after disappointing production guidance.
\n Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) +21.7% on higher output, lower costs.
\n First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) -2.4% AH as revenues slipped.
\n Herbalife (NYSE:HLF) -3.8% AH after a surprise GAAP loss.
\n Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE) +12.1% AH topping estimates.
\n HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) +6.8% AH following upside guidance.
\n Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM) -1.4% despite beating expectations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 8:00 Fed’s Bullard: U.S. Monetary and Economic Policy
\n 8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
\n 10:00 New Home Sales
\n 10:30 Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey<\/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 Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan, China, India, Australia and Thailand led the way; Indonesia was weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East lean to the upside. France, Turkey, Denmark, South Africa, Finland, Russia, Hungary and the Netherlands are doing well; Greece is weak. […]<\/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\/11437"}],"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=11437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11437\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}