{"id":9588,"date":"2016-04-06T07:55:26","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T12:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=9588"},"modified":"2016-04-06T07:55:26","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T12:55:26","slug":"before-the-open-apr-6-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=9588","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 6)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Australia, Singapore and South Korea led to the upside, but gains were small. Taiwan dropped 1.7%. Europe currently leans to the upside, but movement is minimal too. London, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy are doing well. Turkey is down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market. <\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil is up $1.05, copper is down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down. <\/span>
\n Despite the 2-month trend on the daily chart, the S&P is flat going back 2-1\/2 weeks. This is pretty common and not a surprise. Two weeks ago I started suggesting a more defensive posture, given the lack of good set-ups and some lofty breadth indicators, which were starting to diverge from the price action. And here we are two weeks later, the market has gone nowhere. <\/span>
\n FOMC Minutes get released today. Rates are hot topic nowadays, so getting a glimpse of the Fed officials’ thinking could move the market. <\/span>
\n Here’s the daily chart going back 23 months. I’m still of the opinion we need to be defensive right now. We’ve come a long way in a short period of time, and there’s a lot of resistance over head. Could the market just push higher here? Sure, but the easy money has been made. <\/span>
\n That’s it for now. Nothing else to say. My stance now is the same as it was two weeks ago. <\/span>
\n\"\"
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Cisco Systems (CSCO -1.99%) rose over 2% in pre-market trading after it was upgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Underweight’ at J.P. Morgan Chase.<\/span>
\n Pfizer (PFE +2.08%) climbed over 1% in pre-market trading after people familiar with the matter said the company is terminating its $160 billion merger with Allergan Plc after new U.S. tax proposals aimed at curbing corporate inversions. Allergan Plc (AGN -14.77%) is down over 1% in pre-market trading following the news.<\/span>
\n Wells Fargo (WFC -2.04%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Guggenheim Securities.<\/span>
\n Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB -1.85%) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at Sterne Agee CRT with a 12-month price target of $18.<\/span>
\n Apple (AAPL -1.18%) was rated a new ‘Strong Buy’ at Needham & Co. with a 12-month price target of $150.<\/span>
\n Huntington Bancshares (HBAN -1.05%) was upgradd to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral at Sterne Agee CRT with a 12-month price target of $11.50.<\/span>
\n Nvidia (NVDA -0.14%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Stifel.<\/span>
\n Biogen (BIIB +0.61%) was rated a new ‘Market Perform’ at BMO Capital Markets with a 12-month price target of $283.<\/span>
\n PulteGroup (PHM +2.03%) was upgraded to ‘Equal-weight’ from ‘Underweight’ at Barclays.<\/span>
\n Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN -2.66%) dropped over 1% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q1 Macau revenue of $603 million-$613 million, compared to $705.4 million in Q1 of 2015.<\/span>
\n Cree (CREE -0.58%) slumped over 15% in after-hours trading after it reported preliminary Q3 adjusted EPS of 13 cents-15 cents, well below consensus of 24 cents.<\/span>
\n SEI Investments (SEIC -0.75%) was upgraded to ‘Market Perform’ from ‘Underperform’ at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods with a 12-month price target of $45.<\/span>
\n Actuity Brands (AYI +2.19%) fell over 3% in after-hours trading in sympathy with the sharp decline in Cree Inc.<\/span>
\n A Schulman (SHLM -0.38%) fell nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 revenue of $591.8 million, below consensus of $595.4 million.<\/span>
\nEarnings and Economic Numbers<\/strong> from seekingalpha.com…<\/span>
\n Tuesday’s Key Earnings
\n Cree (NASDAQ:CREE) -18.9% following a big preliminary FQ3 miss.
\n Darden Restaurants (NYSE:DRI) -3.7% after its chairman resigned from the board.
\n Walgreens (NASDAQ:WBA) -3.4% as sales fell short of expectations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar
\n 7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications
\n 8:30 Gallup U.S. Job Creation Index
\n 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories
\n 12:20 PM Fed’s Mester: Economic outlook and Monetary policy
\n 2:00 PM FOMC minutes<\/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><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed with a lean to the upside. Australia, Singapore and South Korea led to the upside, but gains were small. Taiwan dropped 1.7%. Europe currently leans to the upside, but movement is minimal too. London, France, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Italy are doing well. Turkey is down more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}