{"id":8939,"date":"2015-08-24T07:47:40","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T12:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=8939"},"modified":"2015-08-24T07:47:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T12:47:40","slug":"before-the-open-aug-24-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=8939","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Aug 24)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a great weekend. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets got crushed. The losses are what you’d see in high-beta tech stocks, not indexes of entire countries. China fell 8.5%, Hong Kong and India more than 5%, Australia, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore more than 4%, and Malaysia, New Zealand and South Korea more than 2%. Europe is currently getting crushed too. Greece and Belgium are down more than 6%, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Hungary more than 5%, London, Germany, France, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Spain, Italy and Portugal more than 4%, Switzerland and Prague more than 3%, and Russia and Turkey more than 2%. Futures here in the States are getting annihilated. S&P 500 down 70; Dow down 665; Nas 100 down 210.<\/span>
\nVIDEO overview of the Leavitt Brothers service…here<\/a><\/strong><\/span>
\nThe dollar is down 1%. Oil is down $1.60 (almost 4%), copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n The market is in full-blown crash mode. Weeks ago huge sell-offs in China were pretty much ignored by the rest of the world. They were definitely ignored by the US. Not any more. China got crushed, and the rest of the world has followed. <\/span>
\n Leavitt Brothers has had a bearish bias for a while. I’ve been very clear that every rally should be sold or shorted until the internals improve. We didn’t know exactly when the market was going to fall or how hard it would fall, but we did know that it was likely coming. <\/span>
\n There are no excuses. Tops take time to form, and this top took several months to play out. One by one it issued warnings and told us to be very careful. You are either short or in cash. There is zero reason whatsoever to be long. The only traders who are long are long-term Warren Buffett-style investors, but those aren’t traders, they’re investors and they’re not reading premarket reports like this. <\/span>
\n The character of the market has changed. The uptrend is over. A downtrend can last months or a year or longer. Along the way there will be big rallies (the biggest up days occur within downtrends) and perhaps a few mini uptrends, but the overall bias is likely to remain down for a while. <\/span>
\n Regarding today, don’t be a hero out there. With an enormous gap down coming, you can throw out all technical tools. They are meaningless right now. Low TICK readings, extreme AD prints, plunging breadth indicators – none have meaning right now. Most traders would be wise to watch and manage whatever shorts they have. <\/span>
\n We’ve been buying dips for years. That stopped within the last few months. The game has changed. More after the open. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Marathon Oil (MRO -2.48%), Noble Energy (NBL -0.82%), and Whiting Petroleum (WLL -7.04%) were all downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at BofA\/Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Bristol-Myers (BMY -2.62%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underweight’ at Piper Jaffray.<\/span>
\n Valero (VLO -9.09%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA\/Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Chevron (CVX -4.39%) was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underperform’ at BofA\/Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Randgold (GOLD -1.37%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Sector Perform’ at RBC Capital.<\/span>
\n Grainger (GWW -1.87%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Baird.<\/span>
\n AutoZone (AZO -5.06%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at BofA\/Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Airgas (ARG -3.54%) and Fastenal (FAST -0.51%) were both downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Outperform’ at Baird.<\/span>
\n Bank of America (BAC -3.71%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Keefe Bruyette.<\/span>
\n Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF -3.74%) was upgraded to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral” at Piper Jaffray ahead of earnings.<\/span>
\n Nike (NKE -4.84%) was upgraded to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Market Perform’ at Telsey Advisory.<\/span>
\n DreamWorks (DWA +5.01%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at B. Riley.<\/span>
\n General Motors (GM -4.02%) is recalling 59,474 Chevrolet Cobalt vehicles manufactured January 4, 2010, to June 23, 2010. The affected vehicles may be equipped with an improperly routed Side-Impact Sensor wiring harness in the driver side front door<\/span>
\n Francisco Partners reported a 7.2% stake in Mitel (MITL -3.63%).<\/span>
\n Emperey reported a 9.5% passive stake in BG Medicine (BGMD -3.41%).<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar
\n 8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index<\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Earnings here<\/a><\/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