Morning Coffee Pre-Market Wall Street News

American’s Outraged Over U.S. Budget Deal/Debt Agreement.

Congress approved a deal to fund the U.S. government, but only through January 15 and raise the debt limit not by a dollar amount but up until February 7. So in reality in a few months we could be facing another shutdown and the out of control spending continues. As the news circulated American became outraged that the temporary agreement was filled with $3 billion in pork spending.  The two most outrageous examples of the pork spending buried in the bill are $174,000 of taxpayers’ money going to the widow of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D).  The Senator was one of the richest in D.C. and he left his wife a multimillionaire.  The other is the quadrupling of the funding for a boondoggle dam project on the Ohio River to nearly $3 billion.  

Upgrades:

Abbott Labs (ABT) S&P raised their rating from Hold *** to Buy ****.

AFLAC (AFL): The Research Team raised their rating from Hold to Accumulate.

Downgrades:

Bank of America (BAC): Raymond James lowered their rating from Strong Buy to Outperform.

Clorox (CLX): Morgan Stanley lowered their rating from Equal Weight to Underweight and placed a target price of $83.00 on the company.

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR): Dougherty lowered their rating from Buy to Neutral.

KB Homes (KBH): Raymond James lowered their rating from Market Perform to Underperform.

Men’s Warehouse (MW): Stifel lowered their rating from Buy to Hold.

Standard Pacific (SPF): Raymond James lowered their rating from Outperform to Market Perform.

Stanley Black & Decker (SWK): Credit Suisse lowered their rating from Outperform to Neutral.

Stanley Black & Decker (SWK): Macquarie lowered their rating from Outperform to Neutral and placed a target price of $75.00 on the company.

Travelers Cos (TRV): Guggenheim lowered their rating from Neutral to Sell and placed a target price of $72.00 on the company.

Coverage Initiated:

Allergan (AGN): JMP Securities initiated coverage with an Outperform rating and target price of $110.00.

Salesforce.com (CRM): Argus initiated coverage with a Buy rating and target price of $63.00.

Earning Reports:

Baxter (BAX): Reported EPS of $1.19 in-line with estimates.

Ebay (EBAY): Reported EPS of $0.64 beating estimates by +$0.01.

Goldman Sachs (GS): Reported EPS of $2.88 beating estimates by +$0.25.

IBM (IBM): Reported EPS of $3.99 beating estimates by +$0.03.

Kinder Morgan (KMI): Reported EPS of $0.27 missing estimates by -$0.04.

Kinder Morgan Partners (KMP): Reported EPS of $0.51 missing estimates by -$0.10.

Noble Corp (NE): Reported EPS of $0.85 beating estimates by +$0.15.

PPG (PPG): Reported EPS of $2.44 beating estimates by +$0.09.

Snap-On (SNA): Reported EPS of $1.43 beating estimates by +$0.02.

UnitedHealth (UNH): Reported EPS of $1.53 in-line with estimates.

Verizon (VZ): Reported EPS of $0.77 beating estimates by +$0.03.

Markets: 
Futures at 6:20: Dow -0.35%. S&P -0.27%. Nasdaq -0.09%. Crude -0.5% to $101.77. Gold +1.9% to $1306.80.  U.S. 10 Year +12/32 to 2.622%.

Europe: London -0.32%. Paris -0.47%. Frankfurt -0.68%. 

Asia, Japan +0.83% to 14587. Hong Kong -0.57% to 23095. China -0.21% to 2189. India -0.64% to 20416. 

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