{"id":11681,"date":"2018-04-19T07:45:49","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T12:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=11681"},"modified":"2018-04-19T07:45:49","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T12:45:49","slug":"before-the-open-apr-19-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=11681","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 19)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly up. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand led the way; the Philippines were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East<\/strong> currently lean to the upside. Finland, Russia, Norway, Israel, Austria and Saudi Arabia are up the most; Kenya is down. Futures in the States<\/strong> point towards a down open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\n VIDEO: <\/strong>State of the Market<\/a>
\n—————<\/span>
\n The dollar is flat. Oil is up; copper is down. Gold is down; silver is up. Bonds are down. <\/span>
\n Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Clorox (CLX -0.09%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal-Weight’ at Morgan Stanley with a price target of $116.<\/span>
\n American Express (AXP +1.37%) climbed more than 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 revenue of $9.72 billion, better than consensus of $9.51 billion.<\/span>
\n Morgan Stanley (MS +0.04%) was upgraded to ‘Strong Buy’ from ‘Outperform’ at Vining Sparks with a price target of $67.<\/span>
\n PTC Inc (PTC +0.53%) slipped 2% in after-hours trading after it said it sees Q3 adjusted EPS of 30 cents to 34 cents, the midpoint below consensus of 33 cents.<\/span>
\n Alcoa (AA +4.06%) rose over 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted Ebitda of $653 million, better than consensus of $612.9 million, and said it sees full-year adjusted Ebitda of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion, well above consensus of $2.58 billion.<\/span>
\n Sleep Number (SNBR -1.16%) sank 10% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 comparable sales fell -3%, weaker than consensus of -2%, and then said it sees full-year EPS of $1.70 to $2.00, the midpoint below consensus of $1.86.<\/span>
\n Novocure Ltd (NVCR +2.37%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Deutsche Bank with a price target of $29.<\/span>
\n Kinder Morgan (KMI +0.94%) gained 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted Ebitda of $1.90 billion, higher than consensus of $1.86 billion, and then raised its quarterly dividend to 20 cents from 12.5 cents.<\/span>
\n Ship Finance International Ltd (SFL +0.68%) dropped 4% in after-hours trading after ii said it intends to offer $150 million in convertible senior subordinated notes due 2023.<\/span>
\n Paratek Pharmaceuticals (PRTK -2.21%) slid over 9% in after-hours trading after it proposed a private offering of $125 million in convertible senior subordinated notes due 2024.<\/span>
\n Sientra (SIEN +7.70%) jumped over 12% in after-hours trading after it said the FDA approved its PMA supplement allowing commercialization of its OPUS-branded breast implant products.<\/span>
\n Helios & Matheson Analytics (HMNY -3.28%) fell over 10% in after-hours trading after it announced an at-the-market equity offering sales agreement with Canaccord Genuity LLC to sell up to $150 million shares of its common stock.<\/span>
\n Rigel Pharmaceuticals (RIGL -5.60%) lost nearly 4% in after-hours trading when it announced that it intends to offer 15 million shares of its common stock in an underwritten public offering.<\/span>
\n Pier 1 Imports (PIR -3.08%) tumbled nearly 15% in after-hours trading after it said it will discontinue paying its 7 cents a share quarterly dividend to allocate greater resources towards its 3-year strategic plan to drive sales and increase shareholder value.<\/span>
\n Wednesday’s Key Earnings<\/strong>
\n Kinder Morgan (KMI) +1.6% AH on Q1 earnings, dividend increase.
\n Alcoa (NYSE:AA) +5% AH on Q1 earnings, raising 2018 EBITDA guidance.
\n American Express (NYSE:AXP) +4% AH Q1 earnings beat, guidance.
\n Crown Castle International (NYSE:CCI) +0.4% AH on healthy Q1 metrics, FFO guidance.
\n United Rentals (NYSE:URI) -3.3% AH despite Q1 earnings beat.
\n Canadian Pacific Railway (NYSE:CP) -1.1% AH despite almost meeting estimates, higher freight volume.
\n Steel Dynamics (NASDAQ:STLD) unchanged AH on Q1 earnings beat.
\n Pier 1 Imports (NYSE:PIR) -16.8% AH on soft Q4 sales, buyback cessation.
\n PTC Inc. (NASDAQ:PTC) -1.9% AH despite Q2 earnings beat, growing subscription revenue.
\n Sleep Number (NASDAQ:SNBR) -9.6% AH on Q1 earnings miss.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 8:00 Fed’s Reserve Gov. Lael Brainard speech
\n 8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
\n 8:30 Philly Fed Business Outlook
\n 9:30 Randal Quarles: \u201cSemi-Annual Testimony on the Federal Reserve\u2019s Supervision and Regulation of the Financial System\u201d
\n 9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
\n 10:00 Leading Indicators
\n 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
\n 4:30 PM Money Supply
\n 4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet
\n 6:45 PM Fed’s Mester: Monetary Policy and Economic Outlook<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/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 Thursday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand led the way; the Philippines were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently lean to the upside. Finland, Russia, Norway, Israel, Austria and Saudi Arabia are up the most; Kenya is down. 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\/11681"}],"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=11681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}