Before the Open (Jun 27)

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, Indonesia and Singapore rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Norway and Greece are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.

The dollar is up a small amount. Oil and copper are up slightly. Gold and silver are down.
Besides the fires which continue to grow and blaze here in Colorado, the biggest news out the last 24 hours was a statement from German Chancellor Merkel that euro bonds were the wrong way to fix the crisis. She doesn’t want “shared liability.” The EU Summit is tomorrow and Friday, and expectations are low anything substantial will result.
There’s been a very favorable ruling for Apple against Samsung – a court said Samsung violated Apple’s patents and is not permitted to make or sell its Galaxy Tablet 10.1.
The market is sitting in no-man’s land. As of last week it had recaptured 62% of its April/May sell-off, and over the last four days gave back 50% of its June rally. The indexes broke out to 1-month highs and then dropped back into their basing patterns. Either the breakouts were of the false variety or they happened prematurely, and more time is needed before the real move can play out. Here’s the 30-min S&P chart. For all the ups and downs and news from Europe, the index is flat over the last six weeks. This isn’t bad considering what the market has had to absorb, but “not bad” isn’t a reason to be comfortably long. In the near term, I’m maintaining my defensive posture.

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