{"id":5516,"date":"2012-04-09T07:38:24","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T12:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5516"},"modified":"2012-04-09T07:38:24","modified_gmt":"2012-04-09T12:38:24","slug":"before-the-open-apr-9-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5516","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 9)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend. <\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed down across the board. India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan dropped more than 1%. Europe is closed today. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold is up; silver is down slightly.<\/span>
\nThe market has been in consolidation mode for three weeks. Rallies have gotten sold, and dips have gotten bought. The Nas and Russell have under performed (not good), but while the short term neutralized, the long term trend remained solidly in place. Then the latest employment numbers were released on Friday. They were worse than expected, and the S&P futures responded with quick 15-point drop. <\/span>
\nHere’s the 15-min S&P chart with an estimate of today’s open which will be clearly below the low of the last 3+ weeks. <\/span>
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\nWe’ve been in conservative mode for about two weeks. Two weeks ago I stated the market is likely to chop around in a range until the employment numbers came out and\/or until earnings season began. Conservative mode means only the best patterns are played, and quicker profits should be taken. It hasn’t been a time to sit back and let the market play out. In trading, sometimes you can sit back and let the market do the work for you, other times you have to do the work. For the last couple weeks, we’ve had to work hard.<\/span>
\nBe defensive (I’ve been saying this for two weeks). Don’t be a hero out there. There’s a time to trade aggressively (when the “coast” is clear) and a time to lay low. This is definitely a time to step back and see what shakes out. Maybe the market pulls back briefly and then legs up again, maybe it actually corrects for a couple weeks. Nobody knows. Don’t chop up your account. More 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>
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