Before the Open (Apr 5)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific market closed mixed – China and Hong Kong gained more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down – there are no big losers. Futures here in the States point towards a gap down open for the cash market.

The Nas 100 is being rebalaced. AAPL will see its weighting reduced from around 20% to 12%, so any funds out there that track the NDX will be selling some AAPL shares to reflect the weighting. If you’ve been wondering why AAPL has been weak the last month, this is why. Somebody knew this was going to happen, so they loaded up on short side waiting for this day (AAPL is down 4 premarket). It reminds me of the story told in Ugly Americans. They should just make trading off insider info legal – nobody goes to jail anyways.
Moody’s cut Portugals sovereign debt today saying financial support from the EU was a matter of urgency.
China raised key interest rates today (4th time since October) in an attempt to dampen inflation.
Meanwhile things continue to progress nicely here in the States. The Russell small caps are at a new high. The Dow is at it’s high. The S&P and Nas are lagging but still in good shape. There are many reasons to not believe the price movement, but hopefully I’ve drilled it into your head you should trade what is happening, not what you think should be happening.
Here’s an update of the 10-min SPX chart. As of now, today’s open will be near yesterday’s low. There’ll be some support between that level and last Friday’s low. After then there’s a void space between 1320 and 1325. If today is weak, filling that void is a no brainer.

headlines at Yahoo Finance
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings Reports
this week’s Economic Numbers