Before the Open (May 14)

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.
The Asian/Pacific markets closed mixed. China dropped 1.1%; South Korea rallied 1%. Europe currently leans to the downside. Austria is up 1.4%; most markets are down but none are down noticeably. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.

The dollar is up slightly. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.
The market continues to put itself in rare air. It’s now been 177 days since the S&P’s last 5% correction. This is the longest stretch in a long time and is very rare.
Because of the consistency of the move, it’s getting harder (or perhaps more useless) to analyze the market with technical tools. For starters, with all the indexes at multi-year highs or all-time highs, there are few ways to project possible upside targets. And even if there were good ways, I don’t think those levels would be meaningful. Overbought can stay overbought for a long time. Also, most groups are participating to some degree, so looking for the relative strength of the groups hasn’t been extremely helpful either. Money is flowing into everything (as opposed to money rotating from group to group).
At this point in time, simple managing risk is your best tool. If you’ve been in a position for a few weeks and are showing a solid profit, protect it. Take some money off the table and keep stops tight. If you’re considering new positions, know that the market has been in an incredible run the last few weeks, so the risk/reward isn’t as good as it was in mid April. The same pattern will produce different results in two different environments.
Don’t guess what’s going to happen next. The market has a mind of its own right now; it’s going to do what it’s going to do. Manage your positions and let the chips fall where they will. More after the open.
headlines at Yahoo Finance
headlines at MarketWatch
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings
this week’s Economic Numbers