Before the Open (Apr 30)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, New Zealand and South Korea did well. Europe is currently mixed. Greece and Amsterdam are down more than 1%; Germany, Stockholm and the Czech Republic are doing the best. Futures here in the States point towards a down open for the cash market.


The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
The market did well yesterday, but volume was lacking. Whatever caused the selling pressure two weeks ago has long been forgotten. We know Wall St. has a very short term memory – the sky is falling one day, and the market surges the next – and what’s happened the last couple weeks is no exception. If you follow the movement closely, it’s confusing and frustrating. But if you back up and see the bigger picture, you’d conclude we are in a consolidation range within a strong up trend.
Today is the last day of the month. Most of the indexes are finishing their 6th straight up month, but the Russell 2000 small caps is down about 1% and the S&P 400 mid caps is down 0.3%.
Tomorrow is an FOMC meeting. Typically this would lead the to the market being slow today. There’s no question much of the market’s strength is due to the Fed pumping money into the system. Rates won’t be changed tomorrow, but is there any chance they’ll hint at higher rates in the futures?
Don’t over-analyze. The market is in a range…there are hundreds of earnings reports out this week and 30+ economic numbers to be released including the latest employment numbers…and of course the Fed. There are lots of things that can quickly cause the market to surge or drop hard. Be conservative. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers