Before the Open (Apr 11)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Austria is up 3.5%; France, Germany and Stockholm are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards large gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is down. Oil is up and copper is down. Gold and silver are down.
The S&P has dropped 5 straight days. Early last week it made a new high. A couple innocent down days followed by two big down days, and just like that, it’s about 65 points off its high. Did I miss the top? In terms of going short, yes. I always do. You can’t nail a trend for several months and then pin point a top. The only ones who can are the ones who incorrectly guess many times along the way. Did I miss the top in terms of being more conservative and adopting a more defensive stance? No. I stated three weeks ago I felt the market would trade range bound. I was right for about two weeks. Then the employment numbers came out. Oh well, my defensive stance served me well. Now earnings season has started. Alcoa surprised the Street with a profit and is being rewarded with a 5% pop.
I believe the long term trend remains up, but we don’t trade the long term trend. If the indexes pull back 5% or 10% (permissible within a long uptrend), many stocks will drop 20% or more. You can’t hold an individual stock until the indexes officially offer a sell signal. The short term trend is down. Many stocks have broken down and will need some time to right themselves. Day traders can continue to play the ups and downs – whatever ups and downs there are considering half the market’s movement takes the form of an opening gap. Swing traders are in a much tougher situation. I don’t want to go long, and it’s too late to go short. This means I lay low. For me to aggressively swing trade, I need to be confident a trend will last a couple weeks, and this isn’t the current situation. Be defensive. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers