{"id":9704,"date":"2016-05-24T07:56:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T12:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=9704"},"modified":"2016-05-24T07:56:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T12:56:38","slug":"before-the-open-may-24-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=9704","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (May 24)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Good morning. Happy Tuesday.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> The <strong>Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly down. There were no 1% losers, but Japan, Singapore, China, Indonesia and South Korea were weak. <strong>Europe<\/strong> is currently mostly up. Turkey is up about 3%; Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Belgium are up more than 1%; London, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Norway, Hungary and Portugal are also doing well. Greece is down more than 2%. Futures here in the <strong>States<\/strong> point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><!--more-->The dollar is up. Oil and Copper are up. Gold and silver are down. Bonds are down. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Nothing noteworthy happened yesterday, so everything talked about over the weekend in the <a href=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/pdfs\/LB%20weekly%2020160522.pdf\">weekly report<\/a> remains on the table. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Yesterday the indexes traded quietly in small ranges; volume was very light. There were a few ups and downs, but there were no forceful moves and no reasons to pay close attention. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> There&#8217;s more Fed talk about raising rates in June if the data comes in where they want it. In my opinion they will raise, as long as the market doesn&#8217;t fall apart. Despite the Fed&#8217;s talk about employment, inflation and the worldwide landscape (economically and politically), the Fed&#8217;s #1 indicator is the stock market. If the market holds the current level or rallies, a rate hike in June is a done deal. If the market drops, forget it. They&#8217;ll be to afraid to raise. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> That&#8217;s it for now. I&#8217;m not going to fill up space here when nothing changed yesterday. My bias leans to the upside, but we must still recognize the S&amp;P remains in a 2-month consolidation range. More after the open. <\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Stock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Home Depot (HD -0.33%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Topeka Capital Markets with a 12-month price target of $158.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Best Buy (BBY +2.04%) fell over 4% in pre-market trading after it forecast Q2 adjusted EPS of 38 cents-42 cents, below consensus of 50 cents.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII -0.26%) was downgraded to &#8216;Sell&#8217; from &#8216;Hold&#8217; at Stifel with a 12-month price target of $135.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Twitter (TWTR -0.14%) was downgraded to &#8216;Sell&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at MoffetNathanson LLC.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> General Mills (GIS +0.40%) was downgraded to &#8216;Sell&#8217; from &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at Goldman Sachs.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Pier 1 Imports (PIR -2.84%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Topeka Capital Markets with a 12-month price target of $12.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Polycom (PLCM +0.18%) jumped over 10% in after-hours trading after it said it received a revised offer from Sponsor 1 and will engage them in talks.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Williams-Sonoma (WSM +0.10%) was rated a new &#8216;Buy&#8217; at Topeka Capital Markets with a 12-month price target of $62.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Nordson (NDSN +0.58%) climbed almost 6% in after-hours trading after it reported Q2 EPS of $1.19, better than consensus of 92 cents, and said it sees Q3 EPS of $1.25-$1.37, higher than consensus of $1.23.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Parsley Energy (PE +0.24%) dropped nearly 2% in after-hours trading after it said it will buy the mineral rights of 30,000 acres in Texas for $280.5 million in cash and will finance the acquisition by offering 8 million shares of class A common stock.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Wright Medical Group NV (WMGI +0.73%) fell over 2% in after-hours trading after it started a 6.2 million share secondary offering of ordinary shares.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Square (SQ +0.75%) gained over 1% in after-hours trading after it was upgraded to &#8216;Buy&#8217; rom &#8216;Neutral&#8217; at BTIG.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Booz Allen Hamilton Holdings (BAH -1.59%) dropped over 2% in after-hours trading after it reported a secondary offering by affiliate Carlyle Group of 13 million shares of class A common stock.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Seaspan (SSW -3.34%) slid nearly 7% in after-hours trading after it announced a 5-million share secondary offering of class A shares.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> Aeglea BioTherapeutics (AGLE -2.01%) surged almost 15% in after-hours trading after the U.S. FDA granted fast track designation to Aeglea&#8217;s AEB1102 to treat excess arginne secondary to a urea cycle disorder called Arginase I deficiency.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <strong>Today&#8217;s Economic Calendar<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 New Home Sales<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 10:00 Richmond Fed Mfg.<br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> 1:00 PM Results of $26B, 2-Year Note Auction<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Today&#8217;s Earnings <a href=\"http:\/\/seekingalpha.com\/earnings\/upcoming\">here<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Other<\/strong>&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">today&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.briefing.com\/investor\/calendars\/upgrades-downgrades\/\">upgrades\/downgrades<\/a> from briefing.com<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">this week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.briefing.com\/investor\/calendars\/earnings\/2016\/05\/23-27\/\">Earnings<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">this week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.briefing.com\/investor\/calendars\/economic\/2016\/05\/23-27\">Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning. Happy Tuesday. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. There were no 1% losers, but Japan, Singapore, China, Indonesia and South Korea were weak. Europe is currently mostly up. Turkey is up about 3%; Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Belgium are up more than 1%; London, Austria, Russia, Denmark, Norway, Hungary and [&hellip;]<\/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\/9704"}],"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=9704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}