{"id":4216,"date":"2011-04-18T07:21:31","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T12:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=4216"},"modified":"2011-04-18T07:21:31","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T12:21:31","slug":"before-the-open-apr-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=4216","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 18)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific market closed mixed and with a bearish bias. Only India lost more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. All but one index is down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a relatively large gap down open for the cash market.
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\nFears of Greece defaulting on their debt is a big reason Europe is down so much. And even though Greece is a small country, a default would have ripple effects because larger countries like Germany and France are big holders of Greek debt. Portugal has begun bailout discussions, and Spain had to pay higher interest rates to borrow money. Europe is a slow moving train wreck.<\/span>
\nLast week the US markets seemed to be on edge, but the bottom didn’t fall out. The bears controled the early week and the bulls the late week. In the end the market closed down for the week but well off their lows. Today’s open will give back about half the move off the early-week low. <\/span>
\nFor over a week now I’ve been laying low and being conservative. There aren’t many good patterns to trade, and since I’m one to wait for good set ups in under favorable conditions, I’ve haven’t been very active. I don’t mind waiting. <\/span>
\nLong term the trend is still up. Short term I’ll call the trend neutral. There is no dominant trend or sentiment…hence why I’ve been laying low. More after the open.<\/span>
\nheadlines at Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
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