{"id":488,"date":"2009-05-21T06:30:14","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T11:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=488"},"modified":"2009-05-21T06:30:14","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T11:30:14","slug":"before-the-open-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning. Happy Thursday.<br \/>\nIf strong markets tend to be weak early in the day and strong later, the market is showing more signs of weakness. Tuesday the market sold off into the close and yesterday the market got hit hard the last 90 minutes. Futures are currently down several points, and the S&#038;P is set to open near 900 \u2013 the target I set yesterday on the Market Window. If 900 gets taken out, Monday\u2019s gap in the low 880\u2019s could be next.<br \/>\nMany ugly candles formed yesterday, so the bulls have their work cut out for themselves today and tomorrow. Dips continue to get bought, and I\u2019d still consider the overall trend to be up\u2026but a lower high was established yesterday \u2013 something the bulls will have to overcome.<br \/>\nThe market is closed on Monday for Memorial Day.<br \/>\nA couple things continue to be on my mind. These are not normal market conditions. The normal forces of supply and demand are not at work. The government is always somewhat involved but never to this extent. What logically should happen won\u2019t necessarily happen (at least not in a timely manner). Abnormal activity and movement that makes no sense is commonplace. Expect the unexpected\u2026or at least don\u2019t be surprised when it happens.<br \/>\nIt\u2019s times like these I remind myself to keep things simple and focus on making one or two good trades each week. When trading is easy (the trend is strong and you could blindly get in almost any stock in the direction of the trend and make money), I size up and trade aggressively. But when the coast is less clear, I focus on just making one or two good trades each week and otherwise waiting for the charts to reset. Now is one of those times.<br \/>\nHere\u2019s the 15-min chart SPX chart. If 900 is taken out, I\u2019ll key on Monday\u2019s gap in the low 880\u2019s.<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/stocks-options-futures-trading-before-the-open\/images\/spx052109-1.png\"><br \/>\nheadlines at <a href=\"http:\/\/biz.yahoo.com\/apf\/archive.html\">Yahoo Finance<\/a><br \/>\nstocks to watch from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/stocks-in-focus-for-thursday-2009520211900\">MarketWatch<\/a><br \/>\ntoday&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/briefing.com\/Investor\/Public\/Calendars\/UpgradesDowngrades.htm\">upgrades\/downgrades<\/a><br \/>\nyesterday&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/leaders-laggards\/2009\/05\/20.cfm\">leaders &#038; laggards<\/a><br \/>\nthis week&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/economic-releases-earnings-reports\/2009\/05\/17.cfm\">earnings &#038; economic releases<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good morning. Happy Thursday. If strong markets tend to be weak early in the day and strong later, the market is showing more signs of weakness. Tuesday the market sold off into the close and yesterday the market got hit hard the last 90 minutes. Futures are currently down several points, and the S&#038;P is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}