{"id":5419,"date":"2012-03-07T08:39:59","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T13:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5419"},"modified":"2012-03-07T08:39:59","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T13:39:59","slug":"before-the-open-mar-7-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5419","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Mar 7)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down. Australia, Malaysia and South Korea dropped 0.9% or more. Europe is currently up across-the-board. Belgium is up 1%; France and Stockholm are up 0.8%. Futures here in the States point towards gap up for the cash market. <\/span>
\nThe dollar is flat. Oil is up slightly while copper is flat. Gold is up. Silver is flat. <\/span>
\nThe S&P hit my first downside target (1340) yesterday. My next target is 1300. Here’s the 60-min SPX chart.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nUnfortunately I’m not the only one eyeing 1300. In fact I’ve read numerous reports from various commentators who are all looking for 1300 too. When everyone seems to agree on something, it rarely happens. The market will either bottom before 1300 (and therefore not give dip buyers a chance to buy where they’d like to buy) or it’ll drop right through 1300 (thus causing lots of pain for those who bought too soon). I don’t know what will play out, but I’d be shocked if the S&P bottomed near 1300.<\/span>
\nYesterday was the single worst day of the year. The small caps dropped about 2%. The Nas 100 dropped 1%. These losses aren’t extreme, but remember the market is not very correlated right now. This means there will be outliers in both directions, and while this doesn’t seem like a big deal, it is. You can’t say: “the Nas 100 only dropped 1%, no big deal, I can hold my positions.” Regardless of what the indexes did, there were many stocks that dropped 3% or more and some that gained ground. Because of this you can’t use the indexes for assistance in deciding whether to hold or not. You must judge each position on its own. If the indexes pull back 5-10%, many individual stocks will pull back 20% or more. Again, don’t look at the indexes for guidance. <\/span>
\nMore after the open.<\/span>
\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>
\n