{"id":6783,"date":"2013-06-24T07:43:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-24T12:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=6783"},"modified":"2013-06-24T07:43:12","modified_gmt":"2013-06-24T12:43:12","slug":"before-the-open-jun-24-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=6783","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jun 24)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. <\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. China dropped a whopping 5.3%; Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea posted losses greater than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece is down 6.1%, Belgium 4.8%, Austria 3.5%, the Czech Republic 3.2%, and France, Germany, Amsterdam, Norway, Stockholm, Italy, Spain and London more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nA lot of technical damage was done last week. The path of least resistance is now down. My target for the S&P is the low 1500’s. I think it’s silly to pick an exact number…just knowing my target is almost 100 points below Friday’s close is good enough.<\/span>
\nFrom a technical standpoint, the market is broken. But last week’s selling was news induced, and the news can change. Bernanke himself can come out and say the public misinterpreted his statements or several dovish Fed governors can come out and clarify nothing has changed…and that tapering will only take place if the economy continues to improve, which is not guaranteed right now.<\/span>
\nI’ve had a defensive posture for a couple weeks and have advised to play it safe…to keep trades shorter term and to not take big chances. This attitude has served us well. The market was range bound…it lacked a near term direction…it was gapping a lot…it was swinging wildly and experienced many sudden reversals. I couldn’t say for sure if the market was consolidating for another leg up or putting a top in place, but the charts did tell us to be more cautious.<\/span>
\nNow the path of least resistance is down…but in most cases it’s too late to go short. We need a bounce to take bearish positions. I hope we get it. My fear is the market just collapses without giving us a second chance to get short. For now I’ll just day trade the futures until the market bounces.<\/span>
\nHere are stock-specific headlines from barcharts.com…<\/span>
\nWalgreens (WAG +0.77%) was downgraded to “Hold” from “Buy” at Cantor.<\/span>
\nJPMorgan raised its price target for Google (GOOG -0.43%) shares to $1,025 from $860 citing increased confidence in search pricing and continued momentum for YouTube.<\/span>
\nReuters reported that more U.S. senators are raising concerns about a Chinese company’s plan to buy U.S. pork company Smithfield Foods, particularly in light of restrictions that China continues to place on imports of U.S. meats.<\/span>
\nThe WSJ reported that Disney (DIS +1.21%) and Sony Pictures Entertainment (SNE +1.70%) are testing a business model in South Korea to rent movies through video on demand while they are still playing in theaters.<\/span>
\nPolitico reports that Republicans in various states around the country are split on the Internet sales tax bill being considered by Congress.<\/span>
\nPVH Corp. (PVH +0.57%) was upgraded to “Overweight” from “Neutral” at Piper Jaffray who raised their price target on the stock to $141 from $124.<\/span>
\nCBOE Holdings (CBOE +0.07%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at Goldman with a price target of $47.<\/span>
\nThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded the approved use of Theravance’s (THRX +10.20%) antibiotic Vibativ to treat patients with hospital-acquired and ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia caused by Staphylococcus aureus.<\/span>
\nGlobalScape (GSB unch) announced that the U.S. Army has exercised year one of a two-year option contract to continue Globalscape’s support for the Standard Army Maintenance System-Enhanced logistics program. The option year is worth $1.45 million and will yield in excess of $360,000 of revenue per quarter.<\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
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