{"id":7056,"date":"2013-10-02T07:44:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T12:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7056"},"modified":"2013-10-02T07:44:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T12:44:41","slug":"before-the-open-oct-2-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7056","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Oct 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia and New Zealand did well. Japan and Singapore dropped. Europe is currently mostly down. France, Switzerland, London and Greece are down. Italy is doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\n The dollar is up slightly. Oil and copper are down. Gold is up, silver flat. <\/span>
\n Day one of the government shutdown was uneventful on Wall St. The market did well and closed near its intraday highs. The small caps, mid caps and Nasdaq, which have been leading, did the best and closed at new highs. The small and mid caps closed at all-time highs. The dividend-paying Dow and S&P 500 lagged and for only the second time in 9 days registered a gain. Here are the dailies…<\/span>
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\n If the government shutdown was not expected, it certainly wasn’t a surprise. But the expectation is concessions will be made quickly, the US will get back to work. The longer it lingers, the more it will weigh on the economy. So at first the shut down is no big deal. Then the response is WTF.<\/span>
\n Does anyone have a study that involves the big divergence we see above?<\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Baxter (BAX -0.17%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Outperform” at Credit Suisse.<\/span>
\n Alcoa (AA +0.62%) was downgraded to “Sell” from “Hold” at Deutsche Bank.<\/span>
\n Valero Energy (VLO -0.91%) was upgraded to “Buy” from “Neutral” at Citigroup.<\/span>
\n Tesla (TSLA -0.19%) was downgraded to “Neutral” from “Outperform” at RW Baird.<\/span>
\n Barrick Gold (ABX -3.17%) was upgraded to “Buy” from Hold” at Deutsche Bank.<\/span>
\n Progressive (PGR +0.44%) was downgraded to “Underweight” from “Equal Weight” at Barclays.<\/span>
\n Bank of the Ozarks (OZRK +1.79%) raised its quarterly dividend 2 cents to 21 cents per share.<\/span>
\n Polaris Capital reported a 9.5% passive stake in Southwest Bancorp (OKSB -0.41%) .<\/span>
\n Delcath Systems (DCTH -6.06%) announced that the FDA has granted it orphan drug designation for its drug melphalan in the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.<\/span>
\n Global Payments (GPN -0.74%) reported Q1 EPS OF $1.00, better than consensus of 95 cents, and then raised guidance on its fiscal 2014 EPS view to $3.98-$4.05 from $3.93-$4.00, stronger than consensus of $3.94.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n 7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
\n 8:15 ADP Jobs Report
\n 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
\n 3:00 PM Bernanke Press Conference<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: MON<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: CAMP, TXI<\/span>
\nOther<\/strong>…<\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a> from briefing.com<\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
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