{"id":6252,"date":"2012-12-20T08:26:35","date_gmt":"2012-12-20T13:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=6252"},"modified":"2012-12-20T08:26:35","modified_gmt":"2012-12-20T13:26:35","slug":"before-the-open-dec-20-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=6252","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 20)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday. <\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. Japan and Taiwan dropped more than 1%; there were no 1% winners. Europe is currently mixed. France, Amsterdam and Greece are up; Austria, Norway and the Czech Republic are down. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is flat. Oil is up a small amount, copper down. Gold and silver are both up small amounts.<\/span>
\nThe Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is in talks to buy NYSE Euronext (NYX).<\/span>
\nOracle (ORCL) is buying Eloqua (ELOQ).<\/span>
\nCarMax (KMX) is up 6% premarket…earnings related.<\/span>
\nConAgra (CAG) is up 3.5%…profit rose in most recent quarter and they raised their view going forward.<\/span>
\nDarden’s (DRI) profit dropped 60%…stock is not trading premarket yet.<\/span>
\nKB Home’s (KBH) revenue increased but their net dropped. The stock is down 1.7%.<\/span>
\nNike (NKE) and Research in Motion (RIMM) also have earnings today.<\/span>
\nWe have two more days of trading this week including options expiration tomorrow. Then Wall St. becomes a ghost town next week. The market is typically quiet between Christmas and New Years, and with Christmas falling on a Tuesday, it’ll be an exaggerated case. Don’t force trades. Have realistic expectations. It’s been a good year and a busy year, and things won’t ease just because the calendar flips. From a technical standpoint, the market is in decent shape but not fantastic shape. Over the last 5 weeks the trend has been up, but if you back the charts up, the last 5 months are neutral. Some of our breadth indicators have failed to support the current move, so we need to be a little more careful going forward. And of course the fiscal cliff talks remain and are likely to lapse into 2014.<\/span>
\nI remain cautiously optimistic but am not in the mood to take big risks. 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>
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