Before the Open (Jul 20)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly down, but Japan (down 1.4%) was the only 1% mover. Europe is currently mostly down. Austria and France are down 1.5%; Greece is up 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
Spanish borrowing costs are rising again. Yields on the 10-year are back above 7%.
MSFT and GOOG are both up in premarket trading – earnings related.
GE is down – also earnings related.
The nature of the market the last two months is it’s either moved straight up or straight down, and almost all reversals have been sudden and out of the blue. Because of this, using a trailing stop has not been a good idea because a perfectly good trade with a nice paper profit could easily be cut in half without any prior notice in a short period of time. Being ahead of the curve taking profits – even when stops are targets have not been hit – has been the way to go. You goal is to make money, to pull money from the market. Your goal isn’t to be right or nail a move perfectly. Pull money from the market and don’t worry about leaving crumbs on the table.
I looked at many charts yesterday and didn’t come away with a strong bias. There are more long set ups than shorts but not enough to get me excited about being aggressive. The market is trending up, but it’s not a strong trend. The bulls have had the upper hand, but they are not totally in control. Because of this, I’ve had a defensive posture lately, and I see no reason to change. We’re playing baseball here. The current nature of the market is we’re not getting great pitches to swing at, so be content to hit mostly singles and an occasional double. Don’t even think about swing for the fences. Even if you get a great pitch, the wind is blowing in. 🙂
More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers

0 thoughts on “Before the Open (Jul 20)”

  1. EU fatigue and fear of the Fiscal Cliff. This is the start of a loooog fall.
    Entered hedges and puts yesterday. I suspect this is a pattern fall period – down.
    The market lost volume yesterday and topped at 1375. It seems to be entering an ABC down. the R2K were weakest and could lead down. 1360 or lower today. Precious metals seem a buy at 1624, if it can get there – disinflation looms. Watching UNG fuel substitution is next. Sell coal – more and buy NGas. Corn is still a buy until it rains. Like the foods PG,Kraft, ADM, but not yet.
    The euro fall has made bucks in the FX market. The dollars will rise and equities fall.

  3. can you expand on your EW count,Whidbey
    its opts ex today and i wont apples earnings out and techs to roll
    to many ”if’s ” out there–i’ll wait for confirmation
    and happy to trade the isness of interday reality

  4. line at ACI 6.25 has been blurred. money to be made on the indecision this causes.
    bought 6.06 sold 6.30. funny they seem to like 4% when there’s volitility.
    the never ending game

  8. Rich is probably sitting in his rocker by the window looking at the sidewalk
    thinking he’s glad he didn’t go to the batman movie and get shot
    Taz is standing just outside the front door puffing on a camel
    watching for the big tsunami, surfboard at the ready
    Aaron is broke from buying options tring to hit the big homerun
    livng in a box downstairs in the alley
    little peter and the wino are drunk and got their rulers stuck
    they think they see patterns in the speggetti stains on the wall

  11. whipsawing away
    instos are not buying,but they are not selling either
    they have set a trap for the retailers and fed
    —-let the fed buy -then we will sell ———say the instos
    the con game goes on —–say the dead cats

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