{"id":11601,"date":"2018-03-28T07:52:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T12:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=11601"},"modified":"2018-03-28T07:52:20","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T12:52:20","slug":"before-the-open-mar-28-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=11601","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Mar 28)"},"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 mostly down. Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore were all weak. <strong>Europe, Africa and the Middles East<\/strong> currently lean to the downside. Denmark is up, but Poland, South Africa, Finland, Portugal and Israel are down. Futures in the <strong>States<\/strong> are mixed &#8211; S&amp;P up, Nas down. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><!--more-->&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\n<strong> VIDEO: <\/strong><a style=\"font-weight: bold; font-size: medium;\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/QUO51lxegL4\">State of the Market<\/a><br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The dollar is up. Bitcoin is up. Oil is down; copper is flat. Gold and silver are down. 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;\"> General Electric (GE +4.27%) was downgraded to &#8216;Sell&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at DZ Bank AG with a price target of $11.20.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Intel (INTC -2.46%) was downgraded to &#8216;Hold&#8217; from &#8216;Buy&#8217; at DZ Bank AG.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> AT&amp;T (T +0.61%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at HSBC with a price target of $41.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Verizon (VZ +0.51%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at HSBC with a price target of $55.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Mastercard (MA -2.62%) was rated a new &#8216;Outperform&#8217; at Bernstein with a price target of $207.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Air Products (APD -1.44%) was rated a new &#8216;Outperform&#8217; at BMO Capital Markets with a price target of $195.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Red Hat (RH -4.14%) jumped over 11% in after-hours trading after it forecast full-year adjusted EPS of $5.45 to $6.20, the midpoint higher than consensus of $5.76.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Dominion Energy (D +1.64%) lost more than 1% in after-hours trading after it announced that it had commenced a registered public offering of 20 million shares of its common stock in connection with forward sale agreements.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Celanese (CE +0.28%) was rated a new &#8216;Outperform&#8217; at BMO Capital Markets with a price target of $131.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Nike (NKE +0.41%) climbed more than 3% in after-hours trading after it announced a long-term extension of their on-field apparel partnership with the NFL.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Lululemon Athletica (LULU -2.03%) rallied 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 total comparable sales up +11%, better than consensus of +8.6%, and then forecast Q1 net revenue of $612 million to $617 million, much better than consensus of $586 million.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Shoe Carnival (SCVL +0.47%) fell 4% in after-hours trading after it forecast full-year EPS of $1.85 to $2.00, the midpoint below consensus of $1.94.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Sonic (SONC +2.22%) dropped nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 system-wide comparable ales unexpectedly fell -2.9%, weaker than consensus of a +0.5% increase.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Parateum (TEUM -4.35%) slid nearly 6% in after-hours trading after it forecast gross margins for 2018 of 70%-75%, the midpoint below the 72.8% in 2017.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Tuesday&#8217;s Key Earnings<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Lululemon (NASDAQ:LULU) +6.2% AH amid strong comp sales growth.<\/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;\"> 8:30 GDP Q4<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:30 International trade in goods<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:30 Corporate profits<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:30 Retail Inventories (Advance)<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:30 Wholesale Inventories (Advance)<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 Pending Home Sales<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 11:30 Results of $15B, 2-Year FRN Auction<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 1:00 PM Results of $29B, 7-Year Note Auction<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 3:00 PM Farm Prices<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/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 mostly down. Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, New Zealand, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore were all weak. Europe, Africa and the Middles East currently lean to the downside. Denmark is up, but Poland, South Africa, Finland, Portugal and Israel are down. Futures in the States are mixed [&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\/11601"}],"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=11601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}