{"id":7170,"date":"2013-11-21T08:38:38","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T13:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7170"},"modified":"2013-11-21T08:38:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-21T13:38:38","slug":"before-the-open-nov-21-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7170","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Nov 21)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Japan rallied almost 2% while India dropped 2% and South Korea and Taiwan dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece, Austria and Amsterdam are up; Belgium, Norway and Stockholm are down. Futures here in the Stats point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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\n The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. <\/span>
\n Yesterday the FOMC minutes hinted tapering may happen sooner rather than later. Even though the Fed agreed at the last meeting to continue buying $85B in assets, there was a lot of discussion about tapering “before an unambiguous further improvement in the [labor-market] outlook was apparent.” Also, many voting members agreed a slower pace of asset purchases could take place at one of its next couple meetings if the data was supportive.<\/span>
\n The market reacted negatively to the news, but with all things Fed, we know the initial knee-jerk reaction often gets reversed the next day. We’ll see. <\/span>
\n Here’s the 60-min S&P chart. The key upper level is 1790ish; the key lower level is 1774\/1775. A bounce up to 1790 which stalls may be a good entry for a short down to the mid 1170’s.<\/span>
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\n So far the drop off the high has been perfectly normal for a healthy market trending up. I see no reason to abandon my long term bias, which of course is up. <\/span>
\n Near term things are less clear. The divergence between the Russell small caps and S&P large caps I posted yesterday is reason to be more cautious in the near term. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Dollar Tree (DLTR -0.66%) reported Q3 EPS of 58 cents, weaker than consensus of 60 cents.<\/span>
\n Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF -0.54%) reported Q3 EPS of 52 cents, higher than consensus of 44 cents.<\/span>
\n Target (TGT -0.21%) reported Q3 EPS of 54 cents, below consensus of 62 cents.<\/span>
\n Reuters reports that U.S. regulators are considering whether to give banks more time to comply with the Volcker rule.<\/span>
\n Donaldson (DCI -0.53%) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 41 cents, better than consensus of 39 cents.<\/span>
\n Raytheon (RTN -0.11%) announced that its board authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $2 billion of the company’s outstanding common stock.<\/span>
\n Jack in the Box (JACK +0.27%) reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 45 cents, higher than consensus of 39 cents.<\/span>
\n L Brands (LTD +0.61%) reported Q3 EPS of 31 cents, stronger than consensus of 28 cents.<\/span>
\n Williams-Sonoma (WSM -0.27%) rose 3% in after-hours trading after it reported Q3 EPS of 58 cents, better than consensus of 55 cents.<\/span>
\n Green Mountain (GMCR +0.65%) jumped nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 89 cents, well above consensus of 75 cents.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n 8:00 Fed’s Bullard: U.S. Economic and Monetary Policy
\n 8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
\n 8:30 Producer Price Index
\n 9:00 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
\n 9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
\n 10:00 Philly Fed Business Outlook
\n 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
\n 4:30 PM Money Supply
\n 4:30 PM Fed Balance Sheet<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: ANF, BKE, BONT, CYBX, DCI, DLTR, GIL, GME, LQDT, PDCO, SPB, TGT<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: ADSK, ARUN, ASYS, BERY, GEOS, GPS, INTU, MENT, MRVL, NGVC, P, ROST, SPLK, TFM, VMEM<\/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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