Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed down across the board (except for China). Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea suffered the biggest losses. Europe is currently mixed. France, Greece, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and London are up; Norway, Stockholm and the Czech Republic are down. Futures here in the States point towards at relatively big gap up open for the cash market.
The dollar is down slightly. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up.
Earnings out this morning include: Disney (DIS), NYSE Euronext (NYX), Chipotle (CMG), CME (CME), Kellogg (K), Expdeia (EXPE), Genworth Financial (GNW), Aflac (AFL), Take-Two (TTWO) and Estee Lauder (EL).
Yesterday the market easily posted its biggest loss of the year and one of its biggest losses of the last couple months. Volume wasn’t extremely heavy, but the selling pressure was steady and consistent all day long. We got a big up day last Friday and then a big down day Monday, and we’re now pretty close to being unchanged over the last week. My stance remains the same. I know it’s kind of boring for me to maintain the same stance day after day, but the market doesn’t change that fast. Long term I still like the upside; the long term indicators remain solid and continue to suggest further upside. But in the near term I’m cautious. Several sensitive short term indicators hint at a needed pullback, and many individual stocks have not gotten the follow through typically seen in an extremely healthy market. The near term is questionable. There’s nothing wrong with pulling back the reins and trading less and being more conservative. At the beginning of an up cycle trading is easy. You can blindly buy almost anything and make money, and you can certainly give better stocks time and space to play out. But as the move matures, your management style must change because instead of shooting for doubles, triples and homeruns, you shoot for singles. In my opinion, this is where we are right now. Be content with little gains, and let the market chop around and figure out what it wants to do next. 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 (Feb 5)”
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for the past 4 years this has not been a normal market
it has been a market controled by goverments and they have reached their state target
dow 14000
it has been a market contoled by the euro–and that to has peaked
and when the euro longs roll their could be a larger equity sell
this is not a normal free market controled by true capitalisum like the 2004 to 07 market
weather we have seen a blow of market top already or this is just a pull back will be up to goverments,that at davos pattered their self on a good job COMPLEATED
There are many political-economic questions still open. The markets are drive by the news on the prospects for long term reforms. Expect the volitality to continue for the year. Basic pressure on market price level is via the Fed QE, and it is up currently. Stay long the indexes because that is what they watch to manage policy and they want UP. Maybe keep an eye on unemployment levels too.