Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan each lost more than 1%. Europe is getting crushed. Every market is down at least 2%. Futures here in the States point towards a large gap down open for the cash market.
Today’s open will be below Monday’s open and Friday’s close, so the indexes will be down on the week. Is that it? Is that all the bounce we’re going to get? Even though the S&P rallied 100 points off its low, my overall bias remained to the downside. My bearish stance would remain if the market drifted up on light volume or turned around and sold off with some intensity. And I would shift to short term bullish if the market continued up with energy and enthusiasm or drifted down on lighter volume. So far we’ve gotten 3 straight days of sideways movement on light volume, so the jury has still been out. But today could change things. If today is a stiff down day, the technical picture is textbook bearish – huge sell-off on big volume, lighter volume bounce, stall, intense selling continues. In such a case, the lows become my next target (with my bearish bias, they were my target anyways). More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers
0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Aug 18)”
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There was a rising bearish wedge forming in the early part of the week and the market went sideways for a few days. As Jason stated, it will take a few days for the market to show it’s hand and I guess now, we are going down. Because we are in Opex week (still) let’s wait until the end of today before we come to any premature conclusions. HW
Tech is the doorway to recovery. Is it closing?
It’s getting harder and harder to be a believer.
Dow 4.6% on the ESU1. There’s a tail, trying a LONG shot.
I lived in Helsinki, Finland for a year. It’s a tiny country,
much smaller than Greece. Spin doctor noise, that’s all.
Quarters not pennies.
Inside hammer, yuck. I hope 1140 holds.
Neal – like you, from an INVESTMENT point of view, I’m still long in clients’ accounts with dividend stocks but have hedged somewhat with Treasuries across the yield curve since the 10 yr Treasuries were around a 3% yield in addition to holding a good deal CASH (which ain’t trash regardless of what I hear). It appears we’re headed down to last summer’s low (SPX 1010-1050 area). That’s where the big decision has to made, in my opinon (assuming SPX 1100 doesn’t hold). By that I mean, do I look at that as a longer term buying opportunity to add attractive dividend plays? Do I take off Treasury positions with 10 yrs at 2% and capture the return form 3% to 2%, etc? Or, do I use an anticipated rally as being a rally in a bear market (which will ultimately test the MAR ’09 lows) and sell stocks to raise more cash in clients’ accounts? That’s my situation – from an INVESTMENT point of view.
From a trading (longer term) point of view, I was stopped out of my long positions at 1295 at the end of July. Unless we’re already in AussieJS’ higher degree 3rd EW down today, I still think I’ll have an opportunity (in my trading acct only) to get long for a swing trade in the SPX 1000-1050 area and then cover and go short on a subsequent bounce to 1200-1220. As they say, we’ll only know in “fullness of time”! Like you, I’ll have to leave the day trades to others (that’s not meant as a criticism).
From a july long term wave 2 high this sure looks like we are in a sub 3 of 1 in long term 3 in the ndx 100—the index that leads all
but this is a german dax crash that lead the ndx
When I lived in Finland, I was young, drunk and stupid.
Maybe I should have stayed there and got married have
some Finnish kids. Miina rakasta siinua= I love you. HW
Prediction: Massive short squeeze/PPT push later today
or tomorrow morning at the latest. If we stabilize
around 1120-1130 that would be the level to watch.
What’s a PPT?
PPT= plunge protection team. that’s something Ronald Reagan
created after the black Monday 1987 crash. Bone up
on your history RichE and stop shopping for your
girlfriend. She has enough crap as it already is.
I like buying her stuff. Who’s Ronald Reagan?
Chuck said fed should not influence share any longer
good on Chuck
Closing long.
I think it may prove interesting to step back and take note of Jason’s 20 month (my 80 week) SMA. If you plot the weekly chart and note the 80 week SMA, it is presently at 1208.47 (see stockcharts.com). We saw a close below the 80 week SMA 2 weeks ago, again last week and you will note that yesterday’s rally failed just below it. While the 80 week SMA is sideways, it’s likely to turn down in the coming weeks. The DAILY 50 day EMA has crossed below the DAILY 200 EMA as both have now turned down. Bulls will argue that this so called “death cross” is meaningless but I think it’s more valid when both EMAs have turned down. The bottom line is that the downtrend is firmly established and the 20 month/80 week SMA is now an area for TRADERS to establish short positions, in my opinion.
ESU1: placing sell limit @ 1150.25
Closing SHORT; Easy peezee. I go buy girlfriend something now.
is there just no buyers anywhere
You could make the case on the SPX hourly chart for 5 waves down from yesterday’s close, setting up a rally to begin tomorrow that could carry to 1150-1160. Then again, it could be something else!