{"id":7245,"date":"2013-12-17T08:04:52","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T13:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7245"},"modified":"2013-12-17T08:04:52","modified_gmt":"2013-12-17T13:04:52","slug":"before-the-open-dec-17-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7245","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 17)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan did well; China dropped 0.5%. Europe currently leans to the downside. France and Belgium are down the most; Amsterdam is up the most. Futures in the States point towards a flat-to-up open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\n The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are down. Gold is down, silver is flat. <\/span>
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\n At this point in time, it’s all about the Fed. Will they begin the tapering process or not? What will the market’s reaction be in either case? And is the news big enough to disrupt the charts for more than just a day or two? These are the big questions.<\/span>
\n Last week Wall St was warming up to the idea the Fed may taper. This week the attitude is shifting back to not tapering. It’s hard to determine what is priced in. <\/span>
\n Then seasonality effects kick in. There are numerous stats which heavily favor buying into the end of the year, not to mention all the hedge funds which are severely lagging and need to do something to salvage their under-performance. <\/span>
\n I continue to like the market long term. This has always been the case. For the last month things have been iffy. There haven’t been many good set ups to trade, and many breadth indicators have lagged. And of course this Fed meeting as loomed. <\/span>
\n I expect today and the first half of tomorrow to be quiet. Then hopefully we can have a good run into 2014.<\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Adobe (ADBE -3.93%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Argus.<\/span>
\n Honeywell (HON +0.88%) lowered guidance on fiscal 2014 EPS to $5.35-$5.55, at the lower end of consensus of $5.55.<\/span>
\n AT&T (T +0.89%) will sell Connecticut wireline operations to Frontier (FTR -0.90%) for $2 billion.<\/span>
\n Facebook (FB +0.92%) was upgraded to ‘Positive’ from ‘Neutral’ at Susquehanna.<\/span>
\n Public Storage (PSA +0.98%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital.<\/span>
\n Medtronic (MDT +0.81%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman.<\/span>
\n Hewlett-Packard (HPQ +0.49%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan.<\/span>
\n Western Digital (WDC +3.30%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan with a price target of $100.<\/span>
\n Citigroup keeps its ‘Buy’ rating on Yahoo! (YHOO unch) and raised its price target on the stock to $46 from $39.<\/span>
\n Huntington Ingalls (HII +1.73%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Deutsche Bank who also raised their price target on the stock to $100 from $78.<\/span>
\n Plains All American (PAA -0.29%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank who also lowered their price target on the stock to $55 fom $66.<\/span>
\n Williams (WMB +3.15%) climbed over 2% in after-hours trading after Corvex disclosed a 5.28% stake in Williams.<\/span>
\n KKR Financial (KFN -0.84%) surged over 30% in after-hours trading after it was acquired by KKR (KKR +0.40%) for $2.6 billion.<\/span>
\n Boeing (BA +0.67%) rose 3% in after-hours trading after it raised its quarterly dividend by 50% to 73 cents per share and authorized a $10 billion share repurchase plan.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n FOMC meeting begins
\n 7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales
\n 8:30 Consumer Price Index
\n 8:30 Current Account
\n 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
\n 10:00 NAHB Housing Market Index
\n 1:00 PM Results of $35B, 5-Year Note Auction<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: FDS, SAFM<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: HEI, JBL, PAY<\/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