{"id":5556,"date":"2012-04-23T07:40:16","date_gmt":"2012-04-23T12:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5556"},"modified":"2012-04-23T07:40:16","modified_gmt":"2012-04-23T12:40:16","slug":"before-the-open-apr-23-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5556","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 23)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed down across the board. Hong Kong, India and Singapore dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. Amsterdam is down 4%, Stockhom 3%, Austria, France, Germany, Norway more than 2%. Switzerland and London more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a large gap down open for the cash market.
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\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nThe reason for today’s weakness is Europe. Election news in France…a failure to agree on budget cuts in the Netherlands…a German manufacturing number that shrank at its fastest pace in almost three years…debt held by the 17 euro countries hit its highest level ever since the adoption of the Euro…Spain is officially in a recession…Italian consumer confidence dropped to its lowest level in 15 yeras – all have added to the selling pressure.<\/span>
\nHere’s the S&P 60-min chart I posted all last week. The week began and ended with the index in a rising flag pattern. Today’s open will be below the two most recent lows (both established last week) but not below the low of the pattern. My next support level is 1340…after that, 1310.<\/span>
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\nI’ve had a defensive posture for a couple weeks. A combination of lagging breadth indicators, some weakness from key groups, even more weakness from some key stocks, an inability of either the bulls or bears to be in complete control – added up, the next near term move was not clear, so I believed it was wise to not be aggressive. This has served us well.<\/span>
\nTrading is not hard when “the coast is clear,” but at times like this when sentiment has shifted and there are so many major unknown factors outside our control, it can be very hard. Don’t push it. 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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