The Market In 5 Minutes: Apple, Valeant And Cuba On Everybody's Mind

Below is a tool used by the Benzinga News Desk each trading day -- it's a look at everything happening in the market, in five minutes. Apply for daily AM access by clicking here or email minutes@benzinga.com.

Macro Focus

A stronger dollar and weaker oil prices weighed on European shares, though gains in Chinese equities and the U.S. interest rate outlook may have brightened investors' mood.

USA Existing Home Sales for February came out at 5.08 million, below estimates of 5.34 million. USA Existing Home Sales month-over-month were -7.10 percent vs. -2.20 percent estimates.

President Barack Obama touched down in Cuba on Sunday, pledging to interact directly with the Cuban people and accelerate engagement between the US and Cuba after more than 50 years of hostility. He is the first sitting American president to visit in nearly nine decades.

Reuters said when China was "[c]onfronted with a plunge in its stock markets last year, China's central bank swiftly reached out to the U.S. Federal Reserve, asking it to share its play book for dealing with Wall Street's "Black Monday" crash of 1987."

BZ Newsdesk Focus

Valeant VRX announced a search for a new CEO, Bill Ackman as a new member of the board and other internal matters such as the 10-K filing delay.

Nike NKE is scheduled to report earnings on Tuesday morning. Check back on Benzinga to see what Wall Street is saying about the sports apparel company heading into the release.

Apple's AAPL Spring event takes place today at 1 p.m. ET. The tech giant is anticipated to release a new iPhone and new iPad.

Sell-Side Themes

Barclays and Mizuho Securities downgraded Valeant, while Rodman & Renshaw maintained its Buy rating.

Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya maintained his bullish view on Radio Frequency chipmakers after attending BAML’s Asia Pacific TMT conference and meeting investors in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Credit Suisse analysts read 66,000 words about China. The firm came to the conclusion that China's five-year plan details the country's wants to spur innovation and eliminate absolute poverty.

Sell-Sides' Most Noteworthy Calls

Bill Selesky upgraded Tesla Motors TSLA from Hold to Buy, with a $333 price target. The Argus analyst believes reduced battery costs would help the company to price its third generation vehicles at approximately $35,000, meaningfully lower than the price of its current models.

Analysts at Bernstein don't see this as a clear sign that Intel INTC is on the upswing, downgrading the stock.

Goldman Sachs launched coverage on the cybersecurity sector with an Attractive view, saying chances of spending growth stabilizing or reaccelerating in 2017 were high, and this could be a good time to buy stocks.

JPMorgan thinks Bayer's BAYRY CropScience sale to Monsanto MON is unlikely, despite reports to the contrary.

Deal Talk

Marriott MAR and Starwood HOT signed an amended merger agreement at $79.53 per share. Starwood shareholders would receive $21 and 0.80 share of Marriott for each Starwood share owned.

IHS IHS is buying its London-based rival Markit, in a deal valued at $13 billion The merger could shake up the finance and industry information sector, which is dominated by Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters.

Sherwin-Williams SHW agreed to buy Valspar VAL for $11.3 billion in cash.

Affymetrix AFFX, a maker of advanced genetic analysis technology, on Sunday rejected an 11th-hour takeover bid meant to derail its planned sale to Thermo Fisher Scientific TMO for $1.3 billion.

What's Up In The News?

Brazil is bracing itself for another week of drama, Bloomberg reports, in which the Supreme Court and Congress will chart the path through the nation’s political crisis after a poll showed two-thirds of its citizens want President Dilma Rousseff ousted.

Alphabet's GOOGL Google is set to expand Wifi and broadband access in Cuba, President Obama told ABC News.

March Madness update: Michigan State went down in a historic upset, while Northern Iowa suffered the greatest collapse in NCAA Tournament history. And this was just the first weekend!

Academia

Painkillers now kill more Americans than any illegal drug. More than 47,000 people in America died of drug overdoses in 2014 in what's been widely called an epidemic. But the biggest killer of this epidemic isn't cocaine, meth or heroin, according to Vox.

Chinese authorities have pledged to crack down on the black market sale of vaccines after a case was made public involving nearly $90 million worth of illegal vaccines that are suspected of being sold in dozens of provinces around the country.

Blogosphere

Huffington Post thinks it's hidden in plain sight: "The people will not pick the next president, Congress will. Because there will be a third party candidate — and their name will likely be Mitt with a Kasich or a Rubio on the same ticket."

The new iPhone debut comes at an awkward time for Apple, says Gadfly's Shira Ovide.

A lot of people are making the same mistake about Tesla and the Model 3, according to Business Insider.

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