{"id":8240,"date":"2015-01-15T08:38:51","date_gmt":"2015-01-15T13:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=8240"},"modified":"2015-01-15T08:38:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-15T13:38:51","slug":"before-the-open-jan-15-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=8240","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jan 15)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. China rallied 3.5%, followed by India (up 2.7%), Japan (up 1.9%) and Hong Kong (up 1%). Europe currently leans to the upside, but Switzerland is down a whopping 9%. Prague is down 1.3%, and Greece is down 0.7%. Germany, France, Italy, Amsterdam and Russia are doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\n The dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up. <\/span>
\n India’s central bank did a rate cut from 8% down to 7.75%…the Indian market closed up 2.7%.<\/span>
\n Switzerland scrapped its cap on the franc today to fight recession and deflation threats. The franc soared relative to other currencies. Here’s what the euro did relative to the franc…down more than 14%.<\/span>
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\n Switzerland’s market did this. It’s off its lows but still down 8.8% as of this writing. <\/span>
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\n Meanwhile gold did this and is now at its highest level since early September. <\/span>
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\n And oil did this. First it surged into yesterday’s close (the big move in the middle of the chart below), and this morning it’s up another 2.57% and is above $50 for the first time in eight days. <\/span>
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\n Lots of stuff going on. <\/span>
\n Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Goldman Sachs downgraded Johnson & Johnson (JNJ -0.73%) to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral.’<\/span>
\n Goldman Sachs upgraded Eli Lilly (LLY +0.55%) to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Sell.’<\/span>
\n Fastenal (FAST -2.07%) reported Q4 EPS of 40 cents, right on consensus.<\/span>
\n Bank of America (BAC -2.49%) reported Q4 EPS of 32 cents, better than consensus of 31 cents.<\/span>
\n BlackRock (BLK -0.64%) reported Q4 EPS of $4.82, higher than consensus of $5.68.<\/span>
\n Lennar (LEN -1.12%) reported Q4 EPS of $1.09, better than consensus of 96 cents.<\/span>
\n Adobe Systems (ADBE -0.85%) rose over 2% in after-hours trading after it announced a $2.0 billion stock repurchase plan through fiscal 2017.<\/span>
\n Northrop Grumman (NOC +0.07%) was awarded a $963.5M government contract for intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, ground subsystems support.<\/span>
\n Ashland (ASH -0.59%) Was initiated with an ‘Overweight’ at Piper Jaffray with a price target of $146.<\/span>
\n BlackBerry (BBRY +29.76%) slumped 15% in after-hours trading after it denied a Reuters reports that it was approached by Samsung SSNLF about a potential takeover.<\/span>
\n Sanders Capital reported a 5.58% passive stake in D.R. Horton (DHI +1.29%) , a 8.53% passive stake in Ryland Group (RYL +0.41%) and a 10.84% passive stake in Meritage Homes (MTH -1.97%).<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n 7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
\n 8:30 Retail Sales
\n 8:30 Import\/Export Prices
\n 10:00 Atlanta Fed’s Business Inflation Expectations
\n 10:00 Business Inventories
\n 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
\n 1:00 PM Results of $13B, 30-Year Note Auction
\n 2:00 PM Fed’s Beige Book<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: JPM, SJR, WFC<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: CLC, GEF, FUL<\/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>
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