Before the Open (Aug 9)

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan each rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently mixed and with a bullish bias, but not one index has moved 1% from its unchanged level. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil is up, copper flat. Gold and silver are flat.
Initial jobless claims dropped last week. One data point means very little, but there is very close correlation between the market and the 4-week MA of initial jobless claims. Any small sign of improvement is welcome.
Yesterday was a “coffee day.” Very little happened. After some early weakness, the losses were recaptured and then the indexes spent the entire day in a tight range. Given the recent rally, a day off to rest and restore some spent energy is not only perfectly normal, but it’s healthy too. The next couple trading days will be important tells. We’ll find out if the market’s character is changing. For almost three months, every rally has gotten sold and every dip bought. And every reversal was quick and sudden and often started with a gap. If the market can rest and then leg up again, we’ll have evidence the market’s funk may be over. This is why I believe the next few days are important even though it seems like the next few days are just random – I want to see evidence the character of the market is possibly changing.
Otherwise, don’t over-analyze things. The charts are much improved, and we actually have some decent patterns to play with. I’m still erring on the side of being conservative but am a little more optimistic about the fall trading season than I was just a week ago. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers