Before the Open (Jul 24)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed; there were no standout winners or losers. Europe is currently mixed. Greece is up 1.1%; otherwise there are no standouts. Futures here in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
China’s flash PMI jumped to its highest level in 5 months (49.5), but it’s still below the 50 level – the level that divides expansion from contraction. They’ve also needed to cut rates twice to get there.
The same PMI reading in the Eurozone dropped to 46.4 – the 6th straight month below 50.
Yields on Spanish 10-year debt moved above 7.6%.
The market got hit hard yesterday. It wasn’t the total disaster it could have been, but stiff losses along with Friday’s sell off adds up fast. The Dow and S&P made higher highs last week; the Nas and Russell did not. That was one warning out of many flashed last week that told us to be very careful with longs. Now the Russell has made a lower low. Here they are…

I still don’t like this market…mostly because for the last two months, the market has either gone straight up or straight down, and every reversal is a sudden reversal that has often involves a gap. We have no opportunity to let a position go for an extra day just to see what will happen. In several instances, this would have caused a chunk our your gains to be wiped out. It’s 5 steps forward, 4 steps back – not fun for a swing trader who wishes to ride a trend for everything it’s worth. Oh well. It’s not wise to force our trading style on the market, so we’ve had to be quicker to take profits. Simple as that. We exit when we can, not when the market gaps against us. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers