Before the Open (Feb 22)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Friday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. China and Hong Kong dropped; Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Malaysia did well. Europe is currently mostly up. Austria, France, Germany, Stockholm and the Czech Republic are leading the way. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up for the cash market.

The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are up small amounts. Gold and silver are up.
The market followed through yesterday and posted moderate, across-the-board losses. Wednesday was the single worst day since the November bottom, so the combination of Wednesday and Thursday are easily the worst two days since the market fell apart the first half of November.
But keep two things in mind. 1) The selling has mostly been due to the FOMC Minutes which revealed some Fed officials would rather take the punch bowl away sooner rather than later. All it would take is a few officials to come out and say the minutes were misinterpreted, and they’re committed to keeping rates low until the unemployment rate drops for the market to rebound. 2) But let’s say a top is forming. History says tops take time to form – easily several weeks and more often several months. There are usually several up and down moves that give the pros a chance to dump shares on the public before a downtrend begins.
My point is be careful in the near and intermediate term. The market can rally for a week and then sell off for a week and then rally for a week. Sentiment has certainly shifted in the very near term. On an intermediate term basis, I’m calling the market neutral. The S&P is unchanged over the last month, and we could easily settle into a tug-of-war battle for the next month. Long term the trend is of course solidly up. It takes more than two down days to change that.
Keep trades short term right now. Expect lots of up and down movement. More after the close.
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 22)”

  1. there are no “””public”””—the fed and instos saw to that
    there is just long only pension funds that buy efts for a living and hedge fund inso banks
    the pension funds will as normal be left holding the bag for their irrational exhuberance
    mislead by the fed
    instos have been dumping on them by rising prices to suck them in–instos are good at this
    and are already on the opposite side to this
    greed controls the market –just in a different way to pre 2008,but doesnt mean central banks wont try to prop markets up
    in reality the fed was set up and owned by insto after those banks conned the then “””goverment into leting those instos do it
    there are rules for spike –exhustion tops and that is what we are having
    weather or not another up can be ”milked ”out of this is another question

    1. AussieJS, please sit back and consider whether your opinions (some might call them rants) are beneficial to anyone on this site. I for one would like to see more constructive comments that help me in my technical decision-making about the market. Your comments don’t fall into that category. Maybe you should find a forum that’s more amenable to people voicing personal opinions. This site is more about technical analysis and all of our comments ought to stay in that realm.
      Thanks for listening.

      1. DEAR GEOFF,
        I was merely commenting on Jasons statements
        selling was not solely due to fomc minutes
        the market is comtroled by big insto bank hedge funds,that use fundermentals and t.v as a excuse to move the market
        infact the instos would have know about the minutes from day one
        instos also create their own propoganda
        what tech analysis would you like to learn
        the type that retailers use or the type that bigboy instos use

  2. many markets already have intraday island tops
    i dont do long term analysis
    it gets in the way of a daytrader,whos only interest is intraday form reading and real time indicators

  3. Neal,
    i stay up at nite talking to you
    its now 1.50 am sat morn here in sunny tropical queensland
    brokerage —0.25 % of a spx point
    thats a quarter of a spx or es point per buy sell
    Jasons comments have the most unbias,common sence veiwpoints of any site
    so good for daytraders or long termers alike

  5. Geoff Stuart-You’re on this site 5 mins and are already dictating to the guys who have been on here for years how to function !!….How Impressive !!
    ALL opinions on/for this site are Welcome !

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