{"id":12100,"date":"2018-08-16T07:35:22","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=12100"},"modified":"2018-08-16T07:35:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:35:22","slug":"before-the-open-aug-16-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=12100","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Aug 16)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Good morning. Happy Thursday.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The <strong>Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly down. Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore posted noticeable losses. <strong>Europe, Africa and the Middle East<\/strong> currently lean to the upside. The UK, Germany, France, South Africa, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, Israel and Sweden are up; Poland, Turkey, Greece and Italy are down. Futures in the <strong>States<\/strong> point towards a relatively big gap up open for the cash market. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><!--more-->&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br \/>\nBookmark <a style=\"font-weight: bold; font-size: medium;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/\">this blog<\/a> for quick future reference.<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Overnight Stock Movers<\/strong> from barchart.com&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Walmart (WMT -0.69%) jumped more than 6% in pre-market trading after it raised its full=year adjusted EPS forecast es-Flipkart to $4.90 to $5.05 from a February view of $4.75 to $5.00, and said it sees full-year net sales up +2.0% in constant currency from a prior forecast of +1.5%-2.0%<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> United Technologies (UTX -0.51%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at UBS with a price target of $160.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Stryker (SYK +0.34%) was rate da new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at BTIG with a price target of $187<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Conn&#8217;s (CONN -4.38%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Jefferies with a price target of $44.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Illumina (ILMN -0.71%) lost 2% in after-hours trading after it said it will offer $650 million convertible senior notes due 2023.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> NetApp (NTAP -0.35%) gained more than 1% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $1.04, well above consensus of 80 cents, and then forecast Q2 adjusted EPS of 94 cents to $1.00, the midpoint right on consensus of 97 cents.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Cisco Systems (CSCO -0.32%) climbed more than 5% in after-hours trading after it forecast Q1 revenue would gain 5% to 7%, higher than consensus of +3.7%.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Healthcare Realty Trust (HR +2.01%) was downgraded to &#8216;Equal-Weight&#8217; from &#8216;Overweight&#8217; at Morgan Stanley with a price target of $28.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Global Net Lease (GNL +0.05%) lost nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it announced the launch of an underwritten public offering of 4 million shares of its common stock.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Briggs &amp; Stratton (BGG -0.70%) rose almost 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 net sales of $502 million, better than consensus of $495.7 million.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> SpartanNash (SPTN -1.00%) tumbled nearly 10% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS from continuing operations of 50 cents, below consensus of 56 cents, and then forecast full-year adjusted EPS from continuing operations of $1.96 to $2.08, weaker than consensus of $2.25.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Lifevantage (LFVN -5.42%) jumped 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 revenue of $54 million, up +7% y\/y, and said that Q4 adjusted Ebitda increased 59% y\/y to $5.2 million.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> HTG Molecular Diagnostics (HTGM -1.49%) climbed almost 5% in after-hours trading after it delivered its first orders of its HTG EdgeSeq Precision Immuno-Oncology Panel.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Wednesday&#8217;s Key Earnings<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) +6.2% AH on healthy guidance.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> NetApp (NASDAQ:NTAP) -6.6% AH after Q1 beats, inline guidance.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> LifeVantage (NASDAQ:LFVN) +7.6% AH on Q2 earnings.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Briggs &amp; Stratton (NYSE:BGG) +9.2% AH on solid Q2 earnings.<\/span><\/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;\"> 8:30 Initial Jobless Claims<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:30 Housing Starts<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:30 Philly Fed Business Outlook<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 4:30 PM Money Supply<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet<\/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 Thursday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore posted noticeable losses. Europe, Africa and the Middle East currently lean to the upside. The UK, Germany, France, South Africa, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, Israel and Sweden are up; Poland, Turkey, Greece 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\/12100"}],"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=12100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}