{"id":8534,"date":"2015-04-27T07:51:26","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T12:51:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=8534"},"modified":"2015-04-27T07:51:26","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T12:51:26","slug":"before-the-open-apr-27-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=8534","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 27)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. China rallied 3%, followed by Hong Kong (up 1.3%), Australia (up 0.8%) and Taiwan (up 0.6%). Indonesia fell 3.5%, and India dropped 1%. Europe is up across-the-board. Germany and Greece are up more than 1%; France, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Italy are also doing well. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.<\/span>
\nS&P Select – Week in Review<\/strong><\/a><\/span>
\n The dollar is up. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n We enter this new week with the indexes being in good shape but the breadth indicators are not fully supportive of a rally attempt, and we still don’t have a very good trading list to work from. Despite the S&P and Nasdaq hitting new highs last week, the strength is not broad-based. Something has to give. If the market’s breadth doesn’t improve, the upside will be limited both in terms of price and duration. This has been the case for a couple months, and all we’ve mostly gotten is a range. <\/span>
\n We have an FOMC meeting and announcement on Wednesday. No fireworks are expected…this meeting has never been targeted as a potential starting point for raising rates, and with consensus shifting to later months, nothing will happen in this April meeting. <\/span>
\n Earnings seasons picks up this week. We’ve seen some big moves in both directions recently, so unless a stock is long term hold, I wouldn’t advise holding into a report. Sometimes earnings season is a non-issue and stocks can be held. This isn’t the case this season. <\/span>
\n The long term trend remains up. My bias remains to the upside, but I’m not entirely convinced. We need breadth to improve. More after the open. <\/span>
\n Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Helmerich & Payne (HP -1.21%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.<\/span>
\n Citigroup raised its price target for Disney (DIS +0.49%) to $125 from $110 and keeps a ‘Buy’ rating on the stock.<\/span>
\n Eaton Vance (EV -0.83%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Citigroup.<\/span>
\n Essex Property Trust (ESS -0.32%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Jefferies.<\/span>
\n Perrigo (PRGO -4.33%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS.<\/span>
\n C.H. Robinson (CHRW +0.04%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at UBS.<\/span>
\n Six Flags (SIX +2.41%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Goldman Sachs.<\/span>
\n SeaWorld (SEAS +1.66%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.<\/span>
\n Allscripts (MDRX -1.18%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underweight’ at Piper Jaffray.<\/span>
\n Roper Industries (ROP -0.08%) reported Q1 EPS of $1.55, above consensus of $1.52.<\/span>
\n Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LH +0.44%) reported Q1 EPS of $1.73, better than consensus of $1.63.<\/span>
\n Applied Materials (AMAT -1.67%) slid nearly 7% in pre-market trading after the compnay scrapped its planned $9.39 billion takeover bid of rival Tokyo Electron Ltd. on opposition from the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/span>
\n Marvell (MRVL -1.51%) dropped 5% in after-hours trading after it lowered its Q1 revenue guidance to $710 million-$740 million from $810 million-$830 million, well below consensus of $816.25 million.<\/span>
\n Paulson & Co. reported an 11.7% passive stake in Synthesis Energy (SYMX -6.09%) .<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s economic calendar:
\n 9:45 PMI Services Index Flash
\n 10:30 Dallas Fed Manufacturing Outlook
\n 1:00 PM Results of $26B, 2-Year Note Auction<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Notable earnings before today’s open: ACW, BPOP, CYOU, HAE, LH, MCY, ONB, OSIS, PDS, PLT, QSR, ROP, SILC, SOHU, STNG, TEN<\/span>
\n Notable earnings after today’s close: AAPL, ABX, ACC, AFG, AGNC, ALSN, AMKR, ARE, AVB, BRX, BXP, CDNS, CHDN, CHRW, CMP, CR, CUDA, DAC, GGP, GIG, HIG, HMST, HT, IPHS, JJSF, JLL, MSA, OLN, OMI, OSTK, PCL, PMCS, PRE, RCII, RE, RTEC, SIMO, SSNC, SSW, SWFT, TCS, UDR, UHS, WCN, WNC, WRB<\/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