{"id":7991,"date":"2014-09-30T07:48:33","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T12:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=7991"},"modified":"2014-09-30T07:48:33","modified_gmt":"2014-09-30T12:48:33","slug":"before-the-open-sep-30-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=7991","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Sep 30)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. Hong Kong dropped 1.3%, and Japan dropped 0.84%. Australia rallied 0.52%. Europe is currently mostly up. France and Italy are up 1.2%, followed by Spain (up 1%), Russia (up 0.9%), Prague and Amsterdam (up 0.65%) and Germany and Greece (up 0.5%). Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\n The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. <\/span>
\n This is a semi big day for the market. The last two days it has opened near its lows and rallied nicely intraday, but it’s been unable to put together back-to-back wins in almost two weeks. An up day today – even though it’s the last day of the month and quarter – would neutralize the near term sentiment. <\/span>
\n Many indicators are poised to support a rally, so if we get a move here, it’ll be fairly easy to judge. Do the small caps out-perform or continue to lag…does the AD line move up…do the bullish percent charts reverse and move up, etc? Nothing overly difficult or complex. A move up needs to be accompanied by an improvement in the indicators or else the move won’t last long or go far. <\/span>
\n One thing that seems for sure…the market is going to shake traders out in both directions so when a directional move begins, the least number of traders as possible benefit. That’s the MO of the invisible hand…confuse as many as possible so very few make money. <\/span>
\n I don’t know what comes next. Most of the time there’s an obvious trend in place, and I can comfortably buy breakouts or pullbacks, but right now, I just don’t know. Big down one day, big up the next. I could make a case for a move in both directions, and when this is the case, I’m less active. More after the open. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n eBay (EBAY -0.51%) jumped over 10% in pre-market trading after it said it will separate eBay and PayPal into independent publicly traded companies in 2015.<\/span>
\n Toyota (TM -0.95%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at JPMorgan Chase.<\/span>
\n Alcoa (AA -1.61%) and Century Aluminum (CENX -2.89%) were both upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA\/Merrill.<\/span>
\n Kellogg (K +0.10%) was downgraded to ‘Underweight’ from ‘Equal Weight’ at Morgan Stanley.<\/span>
\n Teekay (TK +0.72%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Deutsche Bank with a price target of $90.<\/span>
\n Walgreen (WAG -0.96%) reported Q4 EPS of 74 cents, right on consensus.<\/span>
\n Priceline reported a 5.84% stake in Ctrip.com (CTRP -3.48%) .<\/span>
\n Greenlight capital reported a 37.5% stake in Einstein Noah (BAGL +50.49%) .<\/span>
\n Lone Pine Capital reported a 5.3% passive stake in Tiffany (TIF -0.79%).<\/span>
\n Cintas (CTAS -0.48%) reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 78 cents, higher than consensus 75 cents, and then raised guidance on fiscal 2015 EPS view to $3.20-$3.29 from $3.06-$3.15, higher than consensus of $3.09.<\/span>
\n Raytheon (RTN -0.62%) and Lockheed Martin (LMT -0.12%) were both upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Stifel.<\/span>
\n SYNNEX (SNX +1.20%) reported Q3 EPS of $1.59, better than consensus of $1.48.<\/span>
\n Ford (F -7.47%) says it won’t achieve 2014 profit goals, sees pre-tax profit of $6 billion, below ealier projection of $7 billion to $8 billion.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n 7:45 ICSC Retail Store Sales
\n 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales
\n 9:00 S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index
\n 9:45 Chicago PMI
\n 10:00 Consumer Confidence
\n 10:00 State Street Investor Confidence Index<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: WAG<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: SANW<\/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