{"id":4950,"date":"2011-10-17T07:29:26","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T12:29:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=4950"},"modified":"2011-10-17T07:29:26","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T12:29:26","slug":"before-the-open-oct-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=4950","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Oct 17)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. I hope you had a nice weekend.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed with mostly solid gains. Hong Kong gained 2%. Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently trading mixed and with a bearish bias. Almost all the markets are close to their unchanged levels. Futures here in the States point towards a flat or slightly down open for the cash market.<\/span>
\nI don’t have anything major to add to the comments I made over the weekend in my weekly report. What started as a bounce within a range (the fifth one in the last two months) has gone far enough to be considered different than the previous ones. This one has gone farther and lasted longer, and sentiment seems to have shifted. Whereas before I wanted to be ahead of the curve taking profits, not waiting for a trailing stop to be taken out, I am now willing to let positions go for an extra day or so. I also think a dip gets bought whereas before I felt a dip would travel at least to the low side of the range. <\/span>
\nNews of course trumps the charts so things can change, but for now that’s how I’m playing it. From a technical standpoint, I favor the upside. I get this both from a top-down approach (looking at the indexes, then drilling down to the sectors, etc) and a bottom-up approach (looking at the charts of 1000 individual stocks to gauge sentiment, strength\/weakness and potential future movement). Even though the indexes are still mostly range bound, things have taken a turn for the better the last two weeks. More after the open.<\/span>
\nheadlines at Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
\n