{"id":11805,"date":"2018-05-18T07:42:06","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T12:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=11805"},"modified":"2018-05-18T07:42:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T12:42:06","slug":"before-the-open-may-18-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=11805","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (May 18)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Options Expiration.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed with a lean to the upside. Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and New Zealand did well; India and Indonesia were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East<\/strong> are currently split. Turkey, Greece, Norway, Israel and Saudi Arabia are up; Poland, the UAE, Denmark, Hungary, Spain, Italy and Austria are down. Futures in the States<\/strong> point towards a flat open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\n VIDEO: <\/strong>Why You need to Cut Losses Quickly<\/a>
\n—————<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil is flat; copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n Overnight Stock Movers<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Amgen (AMGN +0.49%) rose nearly 2% in pre-market trading after its Aimovig drug won FDA approval for the preventive treatment of migraines in adults.<\/span>
\n Yelp (YELP +2.73%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at B Riley FBR with a price target of $58.<\/span>
\n Nordstrom (JWN -0.27%) slid 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 comparable store sales rose +0.6%, weaker than consensus of +1.0%.<\/span>
\n Spotify (SPOT -1.63%) was rated a ‘Strong Buy’ at Raymond James with a price target of $190.<\/span>
\n Cerner (CERN +1.08%) jumped 7% in after-hours trading after the Veterans Affairs Department said it awarded the company a 10-year IT contract valued at up to $10 billion.<\/span>
\n PayPal Holdings (PYPL +1.76%) acquired iZettle for $2.2 billion.<\/span>
\n Raven Industries (RAVN +2.43%) may open to the downside this morning after it reported after-hours Thursday Q1 revenue of $111.1 billion, weaker than consensus of $117 million.<\/span>
\n Applied Materials (AMAT -2.19%) fell almost 3% in after-hours trading after it forecast Q3 net sales of $4.33 billion to $4.53 billion, the midpoint below consensus of $4.53 billion.<\/span>
\n Marriott International (MAR -1.53%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘In-line’ at Evercore ISI with a price target of $155.<\/span>
\n Boot Barn Holdings (BOOT -0.12%) dropped nearly 4% in after-hours trading after 7.21 million shares of its common stock were offered between $23.50 and $24.00 a share via JPMorgan Chase and Jeffries.<\/span>
\n Host Hotels (HOST) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘In-line’ at Evercore ISI with a price target of $23.<\/span>
\n AmTrust Financial Services (AFSI +0.60%) climbed nearly 7% in after-hours trading after billionaire investor Carl Icahn reported a 9.38% stake in the company.<\/span>
\n Dicerna Pharmaceuticals (DRNA -0.04%) rose 3% in after-hours trading after its drug to treat primary hyperoxaluria, Synthetic Double-Stranded Rna Oligonucletide Conjugates To N-Acetyl-D-Galactosamine Amniosugar Residues, was granted orphan drug status by the FDA.<\/span>
\n Advanced Micro Devices (AMD unch) gained more than 1% in after-hours trading after it was rated a new ‘Outperform’ at Cowen with a price target of $18.<\/span>
\n Quotient Ltd (QTNT +0.86%) jumped almost 12% in after-hours trading after it announced it completed the MosaiQ verification and validation phase for its initial blood grouping.<\/span>
\n Thursday’s Key Earnings<\/strong>
\n Applied Materials (NASDAQ:AMAT) -4.5% AH on mixed guidance.
\n J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) -12.4% lowering its profit outlook.
\n Nordstrom (NYSE:JWN) -7% AH amid light sales guidance.
\n Walmart (NYSE:WMT) -1.9% despite soaring e-commerce sales.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 3:00 Fed’s Mester Speech
\n 9:15 Fed’s Kaplan Speech
\n 9:15 Fed’s Reserve Gov. Lael Brainard Speech
\n 1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count<\/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 Friday. Happy Options Expiration. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea and New Zealand did well; India and Indonesia were weak. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently split. Turkey, Greece, Norway, Israel and Saudi Arabia are up; Poland, the UAE, Denmark, […]<\/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\/11805"}],"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=11805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}