{"id":8390,"date":"2015-03-16T07:47:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-16T12:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=8390"},"modified":"2015-03-16T07:47:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-16T12:47:48","slug":"before-the-open-mar-16-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=8390","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Mar 16)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. China rallied 2.3%, followed by Hong Kong (up 0.5%) and Singapore (up 0.4%). Taiwan dropped 0.7%, and Australia fell 0.3%. Europe is currently mostly up. Germany, Belgium and Amsterdam are up more than 1%; Stockholm, Italy and Spain are also doing well. Greece is down 2.4%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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\n The dollar is down. Oil is down, copper is down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n The market is very much mixed heading into this week and could go either way. All the indicators have moved to levels that would be supportive of a bounce, but many have not moved to extreme levels.<\/span>
\n The quality and quantity of good set ups to play has improved but isn’t great. <\/span>
\n The indexes had a big down day last Tuesday and a big up day Thursday. Friday we got some of both – bears in control early, bulls in control late. <\/span>
\n And the S&P is sitting near the midpoint of its February rally, so it doesn’t have strong support or resistance nearby. <\/span>
\n With the position of the indicators being able to support a bounce and the improvement in the trading ideas, my bias leans to the upside. But it’s not a strong lean. The market has some proving to do. More after the open. <\/span>
\n Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Union Pacific (UNP -0.53%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Macquarie.<\/span>
\n Seagate (STX -1.41%) was upgraded to ‘Strong Buy’ from ‘Buy’ at Needham.<\/span>
\n Royal Gold (RGLD +0.97%) and Rangold (GOLD -1.07%) were both upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’ at HSBC.<\/span>
\n Jabil Circuit (JBL +0.18%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Cross Research.<\/span>
\n DuPont (DD +0.12%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Buy’ at BofA\/Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Francesca’s (FRAN -0.52%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Janney Capital.<\/span>
\n The FT reports that the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency will bring a $1 billion lawsuit against Nomura (NMR unch) due to the bank’s role in the subprime mortgage crisis.<\/span>
\n Walt Disney (DIS -0.68%) rose nearly 1% in pre-market trading after its “Cinderella” movie made $70.1 million in sales in its weekend debut, above estimates of $64 million, according to data from Rentrak Corp.<\/span>
\n Netflix (NFLX -2.21%) fell nearly 2% in pre-market trading after Evercore ISI cut its rating on the stock to ‘Sell’ from ‘Hold.”<\/span>
\n Henry Schein (HSIC -1.40%) will replace CareFusion (CFN -0.12%) in the S&P 500 as of the close of trading on March 17.<\/span>
\n Hanesbrands (HBI +0.49%) will replace Avon Products (AVP -5.85%) in the S&P 500 as of the close of trading on March 20.<\/span>
\n SL Green Realty (SLG +0.05%) will replace Nabors Industries (NBR -0.17%) in the S&P 500 as of the close of trading on March 20.<\/span>
\n Equinix (EQIX -0.43%) will replace Denbury Resources (DNR -3.82%) in the S&P 500 as of the close of trading on March 20.<\/span>
\n Boeing (BA -0.31%) was awarded $713.9 million government contract modification for 26 remanufactured CH-47F helicopters, four new CH-47s, and the option of building two more CH-47 helicopters.<\/span>
\n Bloomberg reports that Whiting Petroleum (WLL +4.28%) has drawn interest from Exxon Mobil (XOM -0.42%) , Continental Resources (CLR -4.88%) Hess Corp. (HES +0.33%) and Statoil (STO -1.37%) as it weighs a sale of the company.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n 8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
\n 9:15 Industrial Production
\n 10:00 NAHB Housing Market Index
\n 4:00 PM Treasury International Capital<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: PGNX, RDNT<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: ANW, BDE, BOOM, CALL, DCO, EGY, FTEK, FXEN, JMEI, MCP, NES, NOAH, OMER, QUNR, XONE<\/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