Before the Open (May 9)

Posted on by Jason Leavitt

Good morning. Happy Thursday.
The Asian/Pacific markets close mixed. South Korea and Indonesia did the best; China, Malaysia and Japan did the worst. Europe is currently mixed. Austria and France are down; Belgium, Stockholm, Switzerland and Greece are up. Futures here in the States lean to the downside.


The dollar is flat. Oil and copper are down. Gold is down, silver is up.
I’m actually typing this on Wednesday night. Thursday morning is a logistical nightmare for me because I not only have to get my three kids ready for school, I have to take them there too. In the US, corporations have employee retreats to build moral and other things I’m not familiar with because I never worked in corporate America. Here in Costa Rica, my wife’s school does it. Her entire 5th grade class is off at a camp somewhere in the mountains for four days. Ah, brings back memories from my fraternity days. 🙂 Anyways, she’s there, so I’m here with three kids under 5. Once I get them to school, it’ll be a normal day, but getting them to school will not be a smooth process.
On to the market. Here’s what I see…
All the indexes are at all-time highs or multi-year highs. The S&P has moved up 12 of 14 days and is almost 100 points off its low of three weeks ago. The consensus is the market is floating higher on all the Fed easing, but I really don’t care why the market is floating higher. The trend is up, so the long side is the only side to be on. Sometimes you gotta put the analysis tools back in the box and call a bull market a bull market and resist asking questions. If you over-analyze things, I promise you’ll miss a lot of upside.
Sooner or later (probably sooner) the market will rest again. But nobody knows when. At this point in time it has more to do with psychology than technical or fundamental reasons. Some bulls are chasing stocks higher. The bears no doubt are frantically covering shorts. The near-vertical move will stop when these two groups are done buying. Until then, ride it. It’s at times like these I’m reminded of Mr. Keynes’ quote…the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers

0 thoughts on “Before the Open (May 9)”

  1. Not market irrationality, but Congressional. The debt ceiling is invoked on the 19th of May but binds spending in the last half ’13. In this interval there may be a hiatus as the traders seek reassurances from Congress that it will stay incompetent for a while longer. In the meanwhile the minimizers’ will push for every nickel. And, again, it is summer and the Hamptons call.
    Costa Rica? Why? Gives us some insight.

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