{"id":7712,"date":"2014-06-03T07:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7712"},"modified":"2014-06-03T07:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T12:42:00","slug":"before-the-open-jun-3-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7712","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jun 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets leaned to the upside. Hong Kong, Japan, India and Indonesia did well; Australia led to the downside. Europe is currently mostly down. Spain, Italy, London, Austria and Germany are down the most. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\n The dollar is down. Oil is flat, copper down. Gold and silver are up. <\/span>
\n The first day of the week did nothing to change the market’s mixed picture. There’s still a lack of clarity, a lack of obvious direction. <\/span>
\n Case in point, the S&P 500 hit a new 5-day high yesterday; the Russell 2000 hit a 5-day low. <\/span>
\n\"\"
\n The small caps have been lagging for a couple months. Everyone knows this. I haven’t seen a single financial media outlet that hasn’t discussed this divergence at least once. In the old days, this would have been a no-brainer short, but in today’s world where such occurrences are known by all market participants, playing out by the book happens much less frequently. I’ve seen it with technical indicators; I’ve seen it with historical tendencies; I’ve seen it with divergences. <\/span>
\n At best the market remains mixed. Its next forceful move is not yet known…there are hints supporting both a rally and drop. In my eyes, the next couple weeks are not clear. Don’t force trades. Preserve capital.<\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Dollar General (DG +0.97%) reported Q1 EPS of 72 cwnts, below consensus of 73 cents.<\/span>
\n Clovis (CLVS -6.76%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Citigroup.<\/span>
\n Broadcom (BRCM +9.32%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Stifel.<\/span>
\n Lam Research (LRCX +0.44%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at Jefferies with a price target of $75.<\/span>
\n Merion Investment reported a 9.0% passive stake in Zale (ZLC unch) .<\/span>
\n Lockheed Martin (LMT +0.28%) was awarded a $914.7 million government contract for engineering, manufacturing and development, production and deployment for the Space Fence program.<\/span>
\n Steadfast Capital reported a 5.2% passive stake in Tesoro (TSO -0.21%) .<\/span>
\n Applied Materials (AMAT +1.63%) was initiated with a ‘Buy’ at Jefferies with a price target of $28.<\/span>
\n Kroger (KR -0.48%) was initiated with an ‘Outperform’ at Oppenheimer with a price target of $55.<\/span>
\n Quiksilver (ZQK -2.53%) plunged over 30% in after-hours trading after it reported a Q2 adjusted EPS loss of -15 cents, a much wider loss than consensus of -2 cents.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n Auto sales
\n 7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales
\n 8:30 Gallup US ECI
\n 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
\n 10:00 Factory Orders
\n 11:00 Global Manufacturing PMI
\n 1:50 PM Fed’s George: Monetary Policy<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: DG, GIII<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: ABM, AMBA, ASNA, DATE, FCEL, MFRM, RENT<\/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