{"id":5527,"date":"2012-04-13T07:36:59","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T12:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5527"},"modified":"2012-04-13T07:36:59","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T12:36:59","slug":"before-the-open-apr-13-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5527","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed up across the board. Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. Belgium, France and Stockholm are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a moderate gap down for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nThis week we’ve had two big down days and two big up days, and the net change is a moderate drop. We knew the market would gap down a bunch on Monday, and after Tuesday, the indexes have recovered fairly well. The market had an opportunity to completely fall apart, but it didn’t. The bulls aren’t going to go down without a fight. <\/span>
\nIn my opinion, the long term trend remains solidly up, and since the trend has been up most of the last three years, it deserves the benefit of the doubt. I’d rather be a little late jumping on a downtrend than repeatedly be early guessing when it will end. <\/span>
\nThe short term trend is definitely in question. The S&P hit a new high and then dropped five consecutive days. A lot of damage was done to the charts, and where the market goes over the next 1-2 weeks cannot be predicted with a high degree of confidence. This makes swing trading hard and risky. If we aren’t sure where the market will be in two weeks, how do we enter swing trades we wish to hold for a couple weeks?<\/span>
\nYesterday I stated SPX resistance was at 1400 and support down at 1340. After the market gaps down today, the index will be in the upper half of the range but close enough to the middle to not have a great urge to go long or short.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nBacking up, the S&P’s most recent high and low mark a range between 1360 and 1420. Yesterday’s close was very close to the middle. Today’s open will be in the bottom half but again, close enough to the middle to not have a strong urge to take a new position.<\/span>
\n\"\"
\nFor now I am maintaining my defensive posture. 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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