Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China rallied over 4%. Hong Kong also did well while Taiwan dropped. Europe is currently mixed; there are no big winners or losers. Futures here in the States point towards an up open for the cash market.
The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are down.
The market is virtually unchanged this week. It moved up for 2+ days and then moved down for 1+ day. We entered the week in need of a little rest, and other than taking out a resistance level and then quickly losing the same level, a rest is exactly what we’ve gotten. Here’s the 60-min S&P chart.
As mentioned above, China rallied better than 4%. Their Purchasing Managers’ Index for December rose to a 14-month high – the single biggest percentage gain since Oct 2009.
There isn’t much company specific news out in the US.
My stance remains the same. I’m cautiously bullish and prefer the upside overall, but in the very near term there are enough cross-currents to keep me from going all in. I looked at 1000 charts last night. I found a few decent short set ups and a small handful of longs but not enough to believe a big rally was right around the corner. There just aren’t that many charts nicely set up to bust out and run.
Play good defense. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers