{"id":5905,"date":"2012-08-20T07:30:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T12:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5905"},"modified":"2012-08-20T07:30:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T12:30:21","slug":"before-the-open-aug-20-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5905","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Aug 20)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed; there were no 1% movers. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece is down 1.7%; Belgium is up 0.9%. Futures here in the States point towards a slight down open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up slightly. Oil is flat; copper is down 1.7%. Gold and silver are little moved. <\/span>
\nThere were reports over the weekend the ECB was going to cap sovereign bond yields by buying bonds at certain levels to prevent them from dropping which would prevent the yields from moving up. The ECB has denied this plan. <\/span>
\nThe China stock market hit its lowest level since early 2009. What a difference between it and the US market. Remember the US bottomed in early 2009, and right now the S&P is up more than 100% since then.<\/span>
\nEyes are back on Greece. The Prime Minister is visiting Germany and France, and it’s believed he’ll ask for an extension on Greece’s deadline to meet fiscal targets as it carries out painful reforms. But Greece isn’t believed to have much wiggle room.<\/span>
\nAetna (AET) plans to acquire coventry Health (CVH) for $42.08 per share.<\/span>
\nLowes (LOW) missed earnings estimates this morning. The stock is down around 7% in premarket trading.<\/span>
\nThe CME plans on creating the first major European derivatves exchange.<\/span>
\nBest Buy (BBY) has named a new CEO.<\/span>
\nLast week was a good one. All the indexes moved up and closed at multi-month highs. The Dow and S&P are close to their summer highs. The Nas and Russell are lagging but busted out of consolidation patterns and got some nice follow through. Overall things look good. But volume has been lacking, and there are a couple indicators that suggest a pullback may be in the cards. At the very least, given the last week’s move up, the risk\/reward ratio for new longs is much less favorable than it was just a week ago. Be conservative out there. This is not a time to take big chances. More after the open.<\/span>
\nheadlines at Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/span>
\nheadlines at MarketWatch<\/a><\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
\n