Before the Open (May 6)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mostly up. Malaysia rallied 3.4%; China, Hong Kong, Indonesia and New Zealand rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently mixed. Austria, Belgium, London and Greece are posting solid gains. Futures here in the States are flat.


The dollar is up slightly. Oil is up, copper down. Gold is up slightly, silver flat.
We begin this new week with most of the indexes at or near all-time highs. You can analyze the market from any angle you want, and eventually you just have to call a bull market a bull market. The long term trend has been up for a long time. There have been pauses along the way and a couple corrections that were deep enough to justify shorts, but overall the trend has been up and it’s been wise to stick with the long side. Again, sometimes you gotta call a spade a spade and go with the flow and not try an out-think the movement.
Here are the daily charts. Given Friday’s across-the-board breakouts, the market’s movement the next couple days is important for the next couple weeks. Within a range, the market can go up and down and bounce around, and nothing really gets my attention as long as the range holds. But as soon as the market tries to resolve in one direction, it’s important to get some follow through and separation. Otherwise the odds of a false breakout increase significantly. So ups and downs right now above the range are not the same as ups and downs within the range.

Unlike last week where there were hundreds of earnings reports and 30+ economic releases including an FOMC meeting, earnings season is winding down, and there are very few economic reports out this week. News trumps the charts, but there won’t be much news this week. With news being light, the market will have to move on its own. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers