{"id":9625,"date":"2016-04-21T07:43:08","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T12:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=9625"},"modified":"2016-04-21T07:43:08","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T12:43:08","slug":"before-the-open-apr-21-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=9625","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 21)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday.<\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly up. Japan moved up 2.7%; Hong Kong and Australia did better than 1%. Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan also did well. Europe<\/strong> is currently mostly down. Greece and Finland are down more than 1%; London Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia and Belgium are also weak. Norway is doing well. Futures here in the States<\/strong> point towards a flat open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\n List of Indexes and ETFs – <\/strong> here<\/a>
\n—————<\/span>
\nThe dollar is down. Oil is up slightly; copper is up. Gold and silver are up. Bonds are down. <\/span>
\n The market just keeps on keepin’ on. The buying isn’t forceful. It’s not conclusive. But 6 out of 7 up days have put the S&P up another 50 points, and for the second straight day, the index has closed above 2100 – less than 30 points from its all-time high.<\/span>
\n This has become a very hated rally. Nobody wants to buy it, and the bears keep getting frustrated and burned with their attempts to pick a top. I’ll admit the current situation is hard to buy, but we’ve had very easy and obvious trades the last two months. Easy and obvious = market trend up and obvious leading groups to play. Commodities have done great. Oil, steel, nonferrous metals, gold, silver (and a few others) have out-performed by wide margins and given us many opportunities to nail some big returns. Trading is hard (and tiring) when you look at 1000 stocks and try to pull out a handful of winners. But if you narrow your search by recognizing what groups are leading, your research is more efficient, and your odds of winning significantly increase. There’s a bull market somewhere. One of your first steps should be finding that bull market. <\/span>
\n Having said this, I’m long but not all in. Risk\/rewards up here aren’t great, so I’ve reduced my exposure. More after the open. <\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Newmont Mining (NEM -1.49%) rose nearly 3% in pre-market trading as copper rose to a 4-week high and after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 34 cents, higher than consensus of 18 cents.<\/span>
\n American Express (AXP +2.28%) rose over 4% in pre-market trading after it reported Q1 EPS of $1.45, higher than consensus of $1.33.<\/span>
\n Yum! Brands (YUM +0.49%) climbed nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 95 cents, better than consensus of 83 cents.<\/span>
\n Qualcomm (QCOM +0.50%) slid over 3% in pre-market trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.04, higher than consensus of 96 cents, but CEO Mollenkopf signaled that its largest customers may use secondary sources for chips for their smartphones going forward.<\/span>
\n Las Vegas Sands (LVS -0.61%) lost 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of 45 cents, well below consensus of 63 cents.<\/span>
\n F5 Networks (FFIV +1.46%) gained over 4% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.68, higher than consensus of $1.63, and then raised guidance on Q3 adjusted EPS to $1.77-$1.80, higher than consensus of $1.74.<\/span>
\n Mattel (MAT -2.57%) dropped over 8% in pre-market trading after it reported a Q1 adjusted loss of -13 cents, a wider loss than consensus of -7 cents.<\/span>
\n Packaging Corp. of America (PKG -0.62%) gained 3% in after-hours trading it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $1.11, above consensus of $1.01.<\/span>
\n United Continental Holdings (UAL +0.95%) fell over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 adjusted EPS of $1.23, higher than consensus of $1.18, but said it sees Q2 passenger revenue per available seat mile (PRASM) falling 6.5%-8.5%.<\/span>
\n Kinder Morgan (KMI -0.84%) fell over 1% in pre-market trading after it reported Q1 revenue of $3.2 billion, less than consensus of $3.76 billion.<\/span>
\n Citrix Systems (CTXS +0.47%) rose over 6% in after-hours trading after it raised its fiscal-year adjusted EPS estimate to $4.90-$5.00, well above consensus of $4.71.<\/span>
\n Tractor Supply (TSCO +0.49%) climbed over 5% in after-hours trading after it reported Q1 EPS of 50 cents, better than consensus of 46 cents.<\/span>
\n United Rentals (URI -1.65%) slipped nearly 6% in after-hours trading after it lowered guidance on 2016 revenue to $5.6 billion-$5.8 billion from a January 27 estimate of $5.65 billion-$5.95 billion.<\/span>
\n Wednesday’s Key Earnings<\/strong>
\n Abbott (NYSE:ABT) +0.3% after topping expectations.
\n American Express (NYSE:AXP) +4.1% AH on Q1 beat, reaffirming guidance.
\n Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) -4.8% on weaker soda volumes.
\n EMC Corp. (NYSE:EMC) +3% thanks to VMware tracking stock.
\n Kinder Morgan (NYSE:KMI) -3% AH as it cut 2016 spending.
\n Las Vegas Sands (NYSE:LVS) -6% AH after missing estimates.
\n Mattel (NASDAQ:MAT) -8.8% AH as weak Barbie and forex impacts hit results.
\n Newmont Mining (NYSE:NEM) +2.8% AH topping the consensus outlook.
\n Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) -3.2% AH offering weak guidance.
\n United Continental (NYSE:UAL) unmoved after a set of mixed results.
\n U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) +2% posting in-line earnings.
\n Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) +3.9% following a strong quarter.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 8:30 Initial Jobless Claims
\n 8:30 Philly Fed Business Outlook
\n 8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index
\n 9:00 FHFA House Price Index
\n 9:45 Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
\n 10:00 Leading Indicators
\n 10:30 EIA Natural Gas Inventory
\n 4:30 Money Supply
\n 4:30 Fed Balance Sheet<\/span><\/span><\/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><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan moved up 2.7%; Hong Kong and Australia did better than 1%. Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan also did well. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece and Finland are down more than 1%; London Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Russia and Belgium are […]<\/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\/9625"}],"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=9625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}