{"id":7234,"date":"2013-12-13T08:25:02","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T13:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7234"},"modified":"2013-12-13T08:25:02","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T13:25:02","slug":"before-the-open-dec-13-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7234","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. India and Indonesia dropped. Australia led to the upside. Europe is currently mostly up. Italy, Spain and Amsterdam are doing well; Greece is down 1.5%. Futures here in the States point towards an moderate gap up open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil is up, copper is down. Gold and silver are up. <\/span>
\nLike last week the market is heading into Friday down relatively big, but unlike last week, there is no big catalyst to propel stocks higher. Barring a big move today, the market will close with its biggest weekly loss since September. No big deal. The S&P rallied over 150 points in two months. Doing some backing and filling is perfectly normal and healthy for a strong market. A runaway market is unsustainable (and hard to trade). A market that moves up and down within a trend is much more sustainable (and much easier to trade).<\/span>
\nThe warnings were obvious a couple weeks ago. The lack of good set ups and several lagging breadth indicators told us the upside was likely limited. Trading is hard when you make it hard, when you put the ball in your court and expect yourself to figure out what’s going to happen. But if you just read the sign posts, it’s not bad. At the very least you can gauge what is likely to happen and then manage your risk accordingly. Over the weekend I’ll review many of the charts I use to determine whether we need to be cautious or whether we can open up a little and be more aggressive. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\nAmazon.com (AMZN -0.25%) was upgraded to ‘Strong Buy’ from ‘Buy’ at ISI Group.<\/span>
\nBritish Petroleum (BP -1.13%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS.<\/span>
\nAdvance Auto Parts (AAP +0.82%) was upgraded to ‘Top Pick’ from ‘Outperform’ at RBC Capital.<\/span>
\nAnadarko (APC +0.10%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan.<\/span>
\nFedEx (FDX -0.12%) was upgraded to ‘Strong Buy’ from ‘Outperform’ at Raymond James.<\/span>
\nBoeing (BA +0.30%) was awarded a $872.77 million government contract for system upgrades for F\/A-18 A\/B, C\/D, E\/F and EA-18G aircraft for the U.S. Navy and the governments of Australia, Finland, Switzerland, Kuwait, Malaysia, and Canada.<\/span>
\nBillionare investor Carl Icahn reported a 12.51% stake in Hologic (HOLX -0.55%) .<\/span>
\nRestoration Hardware (RH -1.17%) raised guidance on fiscal year 2014 EPS view $1.71-$1.74 from $1.65 to $1.70, stroger than consensus of $1.71.<\/span>
\nAccording to data from ComScore, Google Sites (GOOG -0.68%) led the U.S. explicit internet core search market in November with 66.7% market share, followed by Microsoft Sites (MSFT -1.04%) with 18.1% and Yahoo Sites (YHOO +0.51%) with 11.2%.<\/span>
\nQuiksilver (ZQK +2.66%) reported a Q4 EPS loss ex-items of -4 cents, weaker than consensus of a 4 cents gain.<\/span>
\nSAIC (SAIC -2.44%) reported Q3 EPS of 44 cents, weaker than consensus of 50 cents, and then lowered guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS to $2.13-$2.33, well below consensus of $2.47..<\/span>
\nAdobe (ADBE -1.19%) climbed over 6% in pre-market tradng after it reported Q4 adjusted EPS of 32 cents, right on consensus, although it said it signed up 402,000 customers in Q4 to its Creative Cloud online software, higher than analysts’ estimates of 350,000 new customers.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\nToday’s economic calendar:<\/span>
\n8:30 Producer Price Index<\/span>
\nNotable earnings before today’s open: none<\/span>
\nNotable earnings after today’s close: none<\/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>
\n