{"id":12515,"date":"2018-12-20T08:47:24","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T13:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=12515"},"modified":"2018-12-20T08:47:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T13:47:24","slug":"before-the-open-dec-20-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=12515","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 20)"},"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> closed mostly down. Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia posted the biggest losses. <strong>Europe, Africa and the Middle East<\/strong> are currently mostly down. Denmark, Poland, France, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Finland, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Portugal, Israel, Austria and Sweden are down more than 1%. Futures in the <strong>States<\/strong> point towards a positive open for the cash market. <\/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\/iOA9VurIKK8\">How the AD Line Progresses at Market Bottoms<\/a><br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold is up; silver is down. Bonds are up. <\/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;\"> Occidental Petroleum (OXY -1.43%) was rated a new &#8216;Overweight&#8217; at KeyBanc Capital Markets with a price target of $75.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Phillips 66 (PSX +0.51%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at Jeffries with a price target of $105.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> ShotSpotter (SSTI +0.36%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at B Riley FBR with a price target of $53.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Celanese (CE -0.84%) may open higher initially this morning after it was announced that it will replace Express Scripts in the S&amp;P 500 before the open of trading on Monday, December 24.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Bluebird Bio (BLUE -2.22%) was rated a new &#8216;Strong Buy&#8217; at Raymond James with a price target of $165.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Tilray (TLRY -7.19%) rallied 16% in after-hours trading after Anheuser-Busch InBEv SA joined into a research partnership with Tilray where both companies will invest $50 million each into a partnership to develop non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused beverages.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Halliburton (HAL -4.62%) was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at Societe Generale with a price target of $34.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Cal-Maine Foods (CALM -0.54%) was downgraded to &#8216;Sell&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at Goldman Sachs with a 6-month price target of $32.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> G1 Therapeutics (GTHX +0.88%) tumbled 23% in after-hours trading after it said a Phase 2 trial of its Trilaciclib in patients with small cell lung cancer failed to show a benefit over chemotherapy in response rate and progression-free survival.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Herman Miller (MLHR -1.43%) jumped 7% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 net sales of $652.6 million, better than consensus of $647 million, and then forecast Q3 sales of $615 million to $630 million, stronger than consensus of $602.5 million.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Limoneira (LMNR +0.86%) fell 5% in after-hours trading after it forecast 2019 adjusted EPS of 75 cents to 85 cents, weaker than consensus of 89 cents.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (SPPI -1.51%) plunged nearly 30% in after-hours trading after the FDA did not grant Breakthrough Therapy Designation status to its Poziotinib drug for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Wednesday&#8217;s Key Earnings<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> General Mills (NYSE:GIS) +5% topping earnings forecasts.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Pier 1 Imports (NYSE:PIR) -14.4% AH as CEO resigned on failed turnaround.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Rite Aid (NYSE:RAD) +9.7% AH on strong guidance, McKesson pact.<\/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 Philly Fed Business Outlook<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 Leading Indicators<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 closed mostly down. Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and Australia posted the biggest losses. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are currently mostly down. Denmark, Poland, France, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Finland, Norway, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Portugal, Israel, Austria and Sweden are down more than [&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\/12515"}],"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=12515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}