{"id":5584,"date":"2012-05-03T07:36:46","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T12:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5584"},"modified":"2012-05-03T07:36:46","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T12:36:46","slug":"before-the-open-may-3-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5584","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (May 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Thursday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed with a bearish bias. India and New Zealand were weak; there were no big winners. Europe is currently mostly up. France, Germany, Amsterdam, Norway and Stockholm are doing well. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are down. <\/span>
\nAfter three days of trading, the S&P’s net change is less than 0.1%. Dips get bought, rallies get sold. Over the last couple months the market has chopped much more than it has moved directionally – a big difference from the preceding months where the market kept going and going and could barely pull back.<\/span>
\nEdvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” sold for a record $119.9 million last night. It’s important because whoever bought it could have put the money in the market but instead bought a painting. I wonder what the correlation between the price of art work is relative to cycles in the stock market. <\/span>
\nOn the earnings front, GMCR is getting crushed. David Einhorn is finally going to get his way. Visa and Prudential are down. GM is down slightly. VIA did well but that’s no guarantee the stock will move up this morning. <\/span>
\nI’m expecting a somewhat slow day. Tomorrow we get the latest employment numbers. Last month’s report caused a big gap down and intense selling.<\/span>
\nBe conservative until the market breaks out of its funk. That means be ahead of the curve taking profits. Take half off on initial moves and move stops up on your remaining shares. Swing for singles and an occasional double…swinging for the fences will likely result in giving profits back. 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>
\n