Before the Open (Aug 20)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed; there were no 1% movers. Europe is currently mostly down. Greece is down 1.7%; Belgium is up 0.9%. Futures here in the States point towards a slight down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up slightly. Oil is flat; copper is down 1.7%. Gold and silver are little moved.
There were reports over the weekend the ECB was going to cap sovereign bond yields by buying bonds at certain levels to prevent them from dropping which would prevent the yields from moving up. The ECB has denied this plan.
The China stock market hit its lowest level since early 2009. What a difference between it and the US market. Remember the US bottomed in early 2009, and right now the S&P is up more than 100% since then.
Eyes are back on Greece. The Prime Minister is visiting Germany and France, and it’s believed he’ll ask for an extension on Greece’s deadline to meet fiscal targets as it carries out painful reforms. But Greece isn’t believed to have much wiggle room.
Aetna (AET) plans to acquire coventry Health (CVH) for $42.08 per share.
Lowes (LOW) missed earnings estimates this morning. The stock is down around 7% in premarket trading.
The CME plans on creating the first major European derivatves exchange.
Best Buy (BBY) has named a new CEO.
Last week was a good one. All the indexes moved up and closed at multi-month highs. The Dow and S&P are close to their summer highs. The Nas and Russell are lagging but busted out of consolidation patterns and got some nice follow through. Overall things look good. But volume has been lacking, and there are a couple indicators that suggest a pullback may be in the cards. At the very least, given the last week’s move up, the risk/reward ratio for new longs is much less favorable than it was just a week ago. Be conservative out there. This is not a time to take big chances. 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 (Aug 20)”

  1. things just dont feel right intraday on the 1 -5 minute charts world wide index charts
    to be aggresive buying or even selling atm
    the invisible hand is the euro
    what will world central banks and the ponsi mafia do to hold this up for the german and usa elections
    should we let the illuminarti get away with this blatant market manipulation and takeaway our rights to a free market
    write to your local politician and tell him you want free markets when proper tech analysis can work–enclose 1 dollar for his retirment pork barrel piggy bank

  2. the cme are doing the same in asia and forcing margins up on futures and my beloved cfd’s
    because of new opts rules coming on derivitives on the oz exchange
    this is blantantly telling me the ”free” masons are getting ready to sell soon
    ———i always like to know what the buyers/sellers are doing/thinking—-

    1. Thanks AUZ – I read the PDF you suggested – Good stuff – Socialism and austerity – go hand in hand it appears – CONTROL / MAy i say COM&^%*$ISM

      1. and austerity is about to hit usa big time as by 1/1/2013 mandatory budget cuts hit usa
        as debt rises above 1.3 trillion –more than usa takes in in taxes products produced ect
        maybe greece can do a reverse take over of usa

  3. glad you liked it Tim
    there is also another one—-rule by secrecy by jim marrs
    today feels like choppy distribution with a down bias
    or have we just had 11 weeks of distribution

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