Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. Today is a half day; tomorrow is a day off. Wall St. will be ghost town today.
The Asian/Pacific markets (several were closed today) closed mixed and with a slight upward bias. There were no standout winners or losers. Half of Europe was closed today too. The ones that opened are trading mixed. Futures here in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.
The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are up.
If not for the federal law which states the market shall not be closed for four straight days (obviously extreme situations are different – Hurricane Sandy and 9-11), the market would be closed today. The law was put in place in the 1930’s so the market (and banks) could let out a little air…so demand/supply would have a release.
The fiscal cliff rules the day. Last week, word the two sides were making concessions and getting closer to an agreement sent the market straight up on Monday and Tuesday. Then news a vote in the House was canceled sent the market straight down on Friday. Overall the market moved up, but most of the indexes closed in the lower half of their intraweek ranges. So instead of the indexes breaking out, they merely made higher highs and then retreated. The trend off the November low is still up, but this is a less bullish scenario. We also have a few warnings among our breadth indicators.
Be conservative. Play it safe. Play good defense.
Happy holidays. Rest up. There’s more to life than the market.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers