{"id":9403,"date":"2016-01-15T08:50:23","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T13:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=9403"},"modified":"2016-01-15T08:50:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T13:50:23","slug":"before-the-open-jan-15-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=9403","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jan 15)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Options Expiration Day. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. China fell 3.6%. Hong Kong, India and South Korea dropped more than 1%. New Zealand rallied 1%. Europe is currently down across-the-board. Russia is down more than 4%; Austria, Denmark and Portugal are down more than 2%; London, Germany, France, Spain, Italy and many other countries are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\nJoin Leavitt Brothers<\/a> – Top Notch Analysis and Trading Ideas<\/strong><\/span>
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\n The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n Easy come, easy go. Big down day Wednesday; big (but smaller) up day yesterday; now big gap down today. Given the oversold nature of the market, if we don’t get a rally that lasts at least a couple days, the market is in much worse shape than I already believe it’s in. <\/span>
\n Today’s big story is oil. The last three days it has stabilized just above $30, but as of this writing, it’s down $1.72 to trade at $29.48. The $30 level doesn’t mean anything…it’s not a magic level…it’s just one more checkpoint on the way down. Oil stocks are, of course, in very bad shape. Many won’t survive the next year. Heck, even if oil rallied back to 40 bucks, many wouldn’t survive. In the same way that consumers over-leveraged themselves during the housing run-up, many oil companies took on too much debt while oil traded between $90 – $110. It was all fine and dandy as long as oil held up, but without that big source of revenue, the house of cards eventually implodes. <\/span>
\n My overall bias remains to the downside. Any counter trade to the upside is very short term only. Any trade to the downside has the potential to be held…although I’ll admit with the big swings, it’s not always easy to hold. <\/span>
\n The current action reminds me of the financial crisis. Big gaps and big intraday swings. Lots of risk. More after the open.<\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Intel (INTC +2.60%) dropped over 5% in pre-market trading after it said it sees Q1 gross margins at 58% +\/- a couple of points, below consensus of 61%.<\/span>
\n Goldman Sachs (GS +1.51%) fell -1.0% in pre-market trading after it agreed to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgage-backed securities for about $5.1 billion, which will cut its Q4 profit by about $1.5 billion.<\/span>
\n Best Buy (BBY -9.67%) was downgraded to ‘Underperform’ from ‘Neutral’ at Wedbush.<\/span>
\n BlackRock (BLK +1.77%) reported Q4 EPS of $4.75, weaker than consensus of $4.80.<\/span>
\n U.S. Bancorp (USB +2.36%) reported Q4 EPS of 79 cents, right on expectations.<\/span>
\n Fastenal (FAST +1.24%) reported Q4 EPS of 39 cents, below consensus of 40 cents.<\/span>
\n DR Horton (DHI -1.17%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at UBS.<\/span>
\n Hyatt Hotels (H -3.06%) tumbled nearly 5% in after-hours trading after it was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.<\/span>
\n Analog Devices (ADI +0.80%) dropped over 2% in after-hours trading after it cut its Q1 revenue estimate to $745 million-$765 million from a previous forecast of $805 million-$855 million, well below consensus of $829.9 million.<\/span>
\n AbbVie (ABBV +6.60%) rose over 1% in after-hours trading after Amgen lost a challenge to two AbbVie patents on Humira.<\/span>
\n TreeHouse Foods (THS +1.20%) fell over 3% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on 2016 EPS to $2.95-$3.10, below consensus of $3.17.<\/span>
\n Orbital ATK (OA -0.80%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading after NASA awarded the company six NASA missions valued between $1.2 billion-$1.5 billion.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar
\n 8:30 Producer Price Index
\n 8:30 Retail Sales
\n 8:30 Empire State Mfg Survey
\n 9:15 Industrial Production
\n 10:00 Business Inventories
\n 10:00 Reuters\/UofM Consumer Sentiment
\n 1:00 PM Baker-Hughes Rig Count<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\nToday’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