{"id":5141,"date":"2011-12-15T08:34:13","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T13:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5141"},"modified":"2011-12-15T08:34:13","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T13:34:13","slug":"before-the-open-dec-15-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5141","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 15)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed down across the board. China, South Korea and Taiwan dropped more than 2%; Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Germany, France and Norway are up more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
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\nThe dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up small amounts. <\/span>
\nHere are the 60-min index charts. Prices are currntly smack in the middle of their late-Nov lows and early-Dec highs. Prices are also unchanged since the first week of Aug. For all the up and downs and large opening gaps and news, the market is simply flat. There are lots of opportunities to make money day trading, and if you’re a longer term investor who likes to collect dividends, you’re doing just fine – a flat market while you get paid every month or quarter is a perfectly fine scenario. But for those that like to buy and hold for a couple weeks or a month, trading has been frustrating. Lots of gaps, lots of sudden reversals, very little follow through. Other than October when we got a 1-month rally, we’ve had to keep our holding times shorter than we’d like. Oh well. That’s just the way it’s been, and there’s no sense arguing or complaining. The trading environment will get better. In the near term your job is to preserve captial, so when a better environment arrives, you’ll be ready to roll instead of having to dig out of a hole. More after the open.
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\nheadlines at Yahoo Finance<\/a><\/span>
\nheadlines at MarketWatch<\/a><\/span>
\ntoday’s upgrades\/downgrades<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Earnings<\/a><\/span>
\nthis week’s Economic Numbers<\/a><\/span>
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