Before the Open (Apr 2)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. Japan dropped 1%; Malaysia and India rallied about 1%. Europe, which was closed yesterday, is mostly up solidly. Greece is down 2.7%; Austria is up 3.2%, France, Germany, London and the Czech Republic are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up slightly. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
Today is a semi important day. Last Thursday, all the indexes – except for the Russell small caps and S&P small caps – broke out from their patterns and closed at new highs. Yesterday the indexes dropped back into their ranges. I’m willing to ignore yesterday’s light-volume weakness (because Europe was closed) if the market can quickly bounce back today. But if the market falls, we needed to treat last week’s breakout as a false breakout and be extra careful about initiating new longs.
Several breadth indicators have failed to match or support the market’s new highs.
Several key groups made lower highs when the market made higher highs.
Overall the market is in great shape, but in the intermediate term there’s reason to pause. Is this just the proverbial wall of worry? It could be, but I’m not advocating dumping all longs. I’m just saying the extent of the rally combined with several diverging indicators and groups present a trading environment where the risk/rewards aren’t as good as they’ve been. The same pattern in two different environments will produce different results, so you can’t trade in a vacuum. You must be aware of the big picture. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers