Before the Open (Jun 22)

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down across the board (except for Malaysia). South Korea dropped 2.2%, Australia, China and Hong Kong dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. Austria and Norway are the biggest losers. Futures here in the Sates point towards a positive open for the cash market.

The dollar is flat. Oil is up slighty, copper down. Gold is up slightly, silver down slightly.
The market got clobbered yesterday…relentless selling all day. The bulls couldn’t come up for air. Any little relief bounce lasted a very short period of time and didn’t go far.
I turned more conservative on Tuesday when I warned a “sell the news” scenario was not just possible but more likely than not given the rally off the lows and the way Wall St. works. I’ve also been suggesting for two days to take partial profits on well-behaved stocks and dump laggards. Hopefully you didn’t give back too much of your gains.
Moody’s downgraded the credit rating of 15 banks – some of them by 2 or 3 notches. The ratings agencies received a lot of criticism during and after the financial crisis for having AAA ratings on companies that went bankrupt, so the quality of their work has been questioned by many, including Congress. In an interesting turn of events, Citigroup, in reaction to the downgrades, has dismissed them and urged investors to seek alternative analysis. There are other banks who’ve come out in the last 12 hours to brush off Moody’s analysis as backward-looking and not reflective of improvements made. It’s an interesting battle. I’ve had fun poking fun at the cluelessness of the credit agencies the last couple years. Their track record is pathetic, yet they’ve held onto their importance and position. Now we have some of the largest banks in world telling investors to look elsewhere for opinions. In my eyes, neither group has much credibility. We’ll see.
I haven’t entered a new trade in a couple days, and I don’t plan on entering any today. I shift back and forth between looking for new trades and managing the positions I have. I’ve been in the latter for a couple days. The charts are a mess now, and the near term is very uncertain. I have no problem letting the dust settle and patienty waiting for the charts to reset. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers