Before the Open (Mar 11)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Australia and Japan moved up; there were no big losers. Europe is currently mostly down. Austria and Greece are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.

The dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold is flat, silver down.
The S&P moved up all five days last week and is now up 8 of the last 9 days. The Dow and Russell small caps are at all-time highs. The Nas, S&P mid caps and large caps are at multi-year highs. The market feels like it’s in full blown idiot mode. Good news results in buying; bad news results in gap downs which get bought. And several indicators which had been lagging have started to curl up and support the price action.
The S&P is up 65 points in two weeks and 200 points (15%) the last four months. These moves are unsustainable. The market isn’t going to rally 50% in a twelve month period. As the rally continues to mature, less stocks will participate, so we have to be better stock pickers. This is because, at first, everything moves up (a rising tide raises all ships), but as time passes, the weaker companies fall back to where they belong and only the good and great continue on. Eventually the good settle down, and only the truly great companies continue. This means you have a large margin for error at first because most stocks participate. But as time passes, you gotta stick with the leaders and pick your spots more wisely.
Don’t over-analyze the market. It’s ok to listen to the perma bears a little because they keep you grounded and preclude you from getting too one-sided in your thinking, but don’t let them talk you out of a trade. There are many extremely smart and talented analysts who have been dead wrong the last four years, so just because someone has great credentials doesn’t mean they deserve much of your attention. No matter how you look at the market, the trend is solidly up. Your goal should not be to figure out Wall St. as if it’s some sort of game or mystery; your goal should be to just make money, and to do that, you start with being on the right side of the trend. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers