{"id":9700,"date":"2016-05-23T07:51:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T12:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=9700"},"modified":"2016-05-23T07:51:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T12:51:04","slug":"before-the-open-may-23-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=9700","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (May 23)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mixed. Taiwan rallied 2.6%; China and Indonesia also did well. Australia and Japan were weak. Europe<\/strong> currently leans to the downside. Italy is down more than 2%; Russia more than 1%; Germany, France, Spain and Portugal are also weak. Greece is doing well. Futures here in the States<\/strong> point towards a flat open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————<\/strong>
\nLB Weekly<\/a> – the indexes, the breadth indicators, a look at the big picture
\n —————
\n<\/strong><\/span>
\nThe dollar is flat. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n As is typically the case on a Monday morning, I don’t have anything to add to the comments I made in the weekly report<\/strong><\/a> posted over the weekend. <\/span>
\n The market entered last week near the bottom side of its consolidation range, and after three up days and two down days and a close very close to the open, last week’s net change was very small…so the range continues. <\/span>
\n But despite the market not doing much on a week-over-week closing basis, there was a notable occurrence. The market dropped hard after the FOMC minutes were released, and the S&P fell to its lowest level in eight weeks. But the bulls couldn’t take control. The market bounced back and then followed through for a day. Failure to take control when they had the opportunity gives the bulls the slight advantage heading into this new week. <\/span>
\n But overall the market is still in 2-month consolidation range, so I wouldn’t say anyone has complete control. More after the open.<\/span>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Boston Scientific (BSC) was downgraded to ‘Neutral’ from ‘Buy’ at BTIG.<\/span>
\n Alcoa (AA -0.11%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Prologis (PLD +0.69%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Evercore ISI.<\/span>
\n Big Lots (BIG +1.65%) was downgraded to ‘Hold’ from ‘Buy’ at Deutsche Bank.<\/span>
\n Staples (SPLS +1.00%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Underperform’ at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.<\/span>
\n Square (SQ -2.19%) rose 3% in pre-market trading after it was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Outperform’ at CLSA.<\/span>
\n K2M Group Holdings (KTWO +3.19%) was upgraded to ‘Strong Buy’ from ‘Buy’ at Needham & Co. with a 12-month price target of $21.<\/span>
\n U.S. Silica Holdings (SLCA +4.00%) was upgraded to ‘Outpeform’ from ‘Sector Perform’ at RBC Capital Markets.<\/span>
\n Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP +2.15%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Goldman Sachs.<\/span>
\n The Gap (GPS +4.22%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading as it added onto Friday’s 4% increase after it said it would close 75 Old Navy and Banana Republic stores outside North America as it focuses on more profitable regions.<\/span>
\n Lending Club (LC +7.84%) fell nearly 1% in after-hours trading after Reuters reported that people familiar with the matter said the company hired Jeffries to help find investors for loan funding.<\/span>
\n Actions Semiconductor (ACTS +3.40%) surged over 20% in after-hours trading after former CEO Hsuan-Wen and affiliates proposed to acquire the company for $2\/ADS, well above Friday’s closing price of $1.52.<\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n 5:30 Fed’s Bullard: U.S. Monetary and Economic Policy
\n 8:00 Fed’s Williams: Monetary Policy
\n 9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index Flash
\n 6:30 PM Fed’s Harper speech<\/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 Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mixed. Taiwan rallied 2.6%; China and Indonesia also did well. Australia and Japan were weak. Europe currently leans to the downside. Italy is down more than 2%; Russia more than 1%; Germany, France, Spain and Portugal are also weak. Greece is […]<\/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\/9700"}],"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=9700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}