{"id":9963,"date":"2016-10-03T07:47:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T12:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=9963"},"modified":"2016-10-03T07:47:22","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T12:47:22","slug":"before-the-open-oct-3-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=9963","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Oct 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. <\/span>
\n The Asian\/Pacific<\/strong> markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, India and Indonesia gained more than 1%; Japan, Australia and Taiwan also did well. Malaysia fell 1%. Europe<\/strong> is currently mostly up. The UK and Hungary are up more than 1%; the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland and Turkey are also doing well. Futures in the States<\/strong> point towards a down open for the cash market. <\/span>
\n—————
\nLB Weekly<\/a> – the indexes, the breadth indicators, a look at the big picture
\n—————<\/span>
\n The dollar is up. Oil is up; copper is down. Gold is up; silver is down. Bonds are up. <\/span>
\n It’s Monday, and there’s very little news out. As is typically the case, I don’t have much to add to the comments already made in the weekly report<\/a> published over the weekend. <\/span>
\n In it I concluded the market was very neutral on many fronts. Here’s what I said:<\/span>
\n On most fronts the market is very neutral right now.<\/em><\/span>
\n The S&P has established a range over the last 2-1\/2 months, and while it has
\nneeded to absorb some market-moving news, its net change is minimal and
\nthe swings have been small.<\/span><\/em>
\n Most indicators have also neutralized. The AD line and AD volume line are
\nabove 0 but not screaming bullish. The bullish percent charts have flattened
\nout. The percentage of stocks above their 200- and 50-day MAs are exactly
\nwhere you’d expect them given where the S&P is relative to its own moving
\naverages. Essentially the indicators are not suggesting beneath-the-surface
\nstrength or weakness. They’re just sitting there and not helping.<\/span><\/em>
\n No strong bias here in the near term. Overall I like the market and think the
\nS&P will eventually breakout to a new high and rally up to 2300-2400, but in
\nthe near term anything goes…including nothing.<\/span><\/em>
\nStock headlines<\/strong> from barchart.com…<\/span>
\n Teradata (TDC +2.96%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from ‘Hold at UBS.<\/span>
\n Barrick Gold (ABX -1.23%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Deutsche Bank.<\/span>
\n Carnival Cruise Lines (CCL +1.16%) was rated a new ‘Buy’ at HSBC with a price target of $60.<\/span>
\n National Oilwell Varco (NOV -0.33%) was downgraded to ‘Sell’ from “hold’ at Citigroup.<\/span>
\n FirstCash (FCFS +1.82%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Neutral’ at Janney Montgomery with a 12-month target price of $59.<\/span>
\n VirnetX Holding Corp. (VHC -3.47%) jumped over 20% in pre-market trading after Apple was told to pay $302.4 million to VHC after a federal jury said Apple was guilty of infinging on VHC’s patents.<\/span>
\n Halliburton (HAL +1.58%) was upgraded to ‘Buy’ from ‘Hold’ at Societe Generale with a 12-month target price of $55.<\/span>
\n Twitter (TWTR +0.17%) is up over 4% in pre-market trading after a person familiar with the matter said Alphabet (GOOG +0.29%) is said to be working with Lazard to review a potential bid for the company .<\/span>
\n Levin Capital said it increased its stake in Fluidigm (FLDM -4.76%) to 19.6% from 12.38%<\/span>
\n Dave & Buster’s Entertainment (PLAY +3.54%) rose nearly 4% in after-hours trading after it was announced that it will replace Piedmont Natural Gas in the S&P SmallCap 600 after the close of trading Monday, October 3.<\/span>
\n Express Scripts (ESRX +0.99%) said it will add Walgreens to its Tricare pharmacy network and drop CVS, as of December 1.<\/span>
\n Seaword (SEAS -0.44%) gained 1% in after-hours trading after Ivory Cove reported a 5.2% stake in the company, the fourth largest.<\/span>
\n The board of Viacom (VIAB +0.87%) has formed a special committee to evaluate a possible combination with CBS.<\/span>
\n Illinois Treasurer Frerichs said late Friday that Illinois will suspend investment activity with Wells Fargo (WFC -0.20%).<\/span>
\n Thursday’s Key Earnings<\/strong>
\n Accenture (NYSE:ACN) +4.3% after topping estimates.
\n ConAgra Foods (NYSE:CAG) +7.2% beating earnings expectations.
\n Costco (NASDAQ:COST) +1.7% AH on lower fees to Visa (NYSE:V).
\n PepsiCo (NYSE:PEP) +0.4% buoyed by organic growth.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
\n Today’s Economic Calendar<\/strong>
\n Auto Sales
\n 8:30 Gallup US Consumer Spending Measure
\n 9:45 PMI Manufacturing Index
\n 10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index
\n 10:00 Construction Spending<\/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 Monday. Hope you had a good weekend. The Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, India and Indonesia gained more than 1%; Japan, Australia and Taiwan also did well. Malaysia fell 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. The UK and Hungary are up more than 1%; the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland and […]<\/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\/9963"}],"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=9963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}