{"id":7461,"date":"2014-03-17T07:40:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T12:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7461"},"modified":"2014-03-17T07:40:52","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T12:40:52","slug":"before-the-open-mar-17-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7461","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Mar 17)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. China, Singapore and Malaysia moved up; there were no big down markets. Europe is currently up across the board. Greece is up 2.4%, and Austria, Prague and Russia more than 1%. Italy, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Germany and France are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a solid gap up open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\n The dollar is up slightly. Oil is down, copper up. Gold and silver are down. <\/span>
\n The big news over the weekend comes from eastern Europe. The people of Crimea, Ukraine’s southern peninsula, voted by an overwhelming majority to secede from Ukraine and join Russia. This was no surprise. Most of Crimeans are Russian. The US and Europe has already called the vote illegal (heck, the vote took place very quickly and with Russian military within the peninsula and conducting military exercises on the boarder). We’ll see what happens. Markets around the world don’t seem to be overly concerned. <\/span>
\n Ignoring the news, the market is in very good shape overall, but in the near term things are iffy. Several indicators are moving against overbought levels and have further to fall before reaching oversold levels (if the powers that be want them to reach oversold levels). Others nicely bounced during February and early March but are now rolling over. They can certainly right themselves soon, but if they continue to drop, odds favor more downside before the market attempts to leg up again. The bullish % chart below is an example. <\/span>
\n\"\"
\n So, long term the market looks great. Short term things are iffy. More after the open. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n RBC Capital kept its ‘Outperform’ rating on Adobe (ADBE +0.16%) and increased its price target on the stock to $75 from $63.<\/span>
\n Facebook (FB -1.61%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Argus.<\/span>
\n JA Solar (JASO +8.25%) reported Q4 EPS of 16 cents, well above consensus of 1 cent.<\/span>
\n GNC Holdings (GNC -0.41%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Credit Suisse.<\/span>
\n SAP (SAP +0.61%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.<\/span>
\n Siemens (SI +2.00%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA\/Merrill.<\/span>
\n TC PipeLines (TCP +0.82%) and Martin Midstream Partners (MMLP +0.47%) were both upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.<\/span>
\n Amgen’s (AMGN -1.15%) talimogene laherparepvec drug reduced the size of tumors in a Phase 3 study.<\/span>
\n Keurig Green Mountain (GMCR +6.68%) rose over 1% in European trading after it was announced that it will replace WPX Energy (WPX -0.11%) in S&P 500 as of the 3\/21 close.<\/span>
\n Long Focus Capital reported a 8.933% passive stake in Lucas Energy (LEI -8.00%) .<\/span>
\n Solus Alternative Asset reported a 8.91% passive stake in YRC Worldwide (YRCW +1.70%) .<\/span>
\n UPS Freight (UPS -0.85%) announced a general rate increase of 4.4%, effective March 31.<\/span>
\n Kylin reported a 5.9% passive stake in E-House (EJ +0.63%) .<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Monday’s economic calendar:
\n 8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
\n 9:00 Treasury International Capital
\n 9:15 Industrial Production
\n 10:00 NAHB Housing Market Index<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before Monday\u2019s open: HNR, JASO, KIOR, LMIA, TNP<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after Monday\u2019s close: FF, GERN<\/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