Before the Open (Nov 23)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed weak. Hong Kong, India, South Korea and Taiwan dropped more than 2%; Australia, Indonesia and Singapore fell more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly down, but there are no 1% movers. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down open for the cash market.

The market has dropped five straight days, but is still several days from being oversold. This is the longest losing streak since the late-Aug, early-July sell-off, and just like the October rally felt different than previous bounce attempts, this pullback feels different than previous dips. The weight of Europe is too much to bear, and since Europe isn’t going away anytime soon, the bulls lack motivation to buy right now.
Looking at hundreds of charts yesterday didn’t reveal anything worth trading. Overall they’re a mess. They’re very gappy, and they lack smoothness. In most cases there are many long tails on the daily candles, and support and resistance are difficult or impossible to draw. I trade chart patterns within trends. Right now there are no obvious patterns to trade, and the trend is iffy at best. Hence why I’ve been conservative for a couple weeks. No position is a position. I’ve traded long enough to know there’s always another day and another trade, and I’d rather lay low than force the issue.
The market is closed tomorrow and the second half of Friday. Volume will no doubt be light today. If I’ve been in conservative mode for a couple weeks, and there are no good patterns to trade right now, I certainly see no reason to do anything today. In fact if it wasn’t for Leavitt Brothers, I’d probably just take the day off. 🙂
headlines at Yahoo Finance
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers