Before the Open (Apr 22)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Japan rallied almost 2%; South Korea rallied 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Austria is up 3.5%; Greece, Italy and the Czech Republic are up more than 1%; Amsterdam is down 1.3%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.

The dollar is up slightly. Oil is up, copper down. Gold and silver are up.
I don’t have anything to add to the report and video I did over the weekend. The market is on thin ice. It no longer has wiggle room. Right now I’d consider the action to be a pullback within an uptrend, but if it lasts much longer or drops much further, I’ll have to re-categorize it.
I can make a decent case the market is due to bounce right now, but unless I see significant improvement, the bounce will get sold into. Too many key stocks are weak; too many key groups are weak; numerous indicators are not in good shape. If the market wants to right itself, great. But as of now, I believe the next decent move is down.
Caterpillar (CAT) missed top and bottom line estimates. Not a surprise, the stock has been trending down for several months. The stock is up a little in premarket action, so perhaps the miss was expected, and the worst is behind it.
Risk is elevated right now. Last week we got several big gap opens, several big range days, a couple trend days and a big expansion in volatility. The market is on edge. Traders are on edge. It wouldn’t take much to tip it in one direction or the other. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers