{"id":5649,"date":"2012-05-23T07:44:47","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T12:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5649"},"modified":"2012-05-23T07:44:47","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T12:44:47","slug":"before-the-open-may-23-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5649","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (May 23)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed down across the board. Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan all dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently down across the board. France is down 2%; Austria, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Stockholm, London and Greece are down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a big gap down open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are down and at new lows. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nGermany sold 2-year bonds at 0.07%. Wow.<\/span>
\nFrance has become an attractive place to invest. Their 10-year yields are 2.78% (much higher than Germany) and of course France is in better shape than Italy and Spain.<\/span>
\nConsumer confidence hit its lowest level since 1996.<\/span>
\nHere in the States we’ll get a couple housing numbers 30 min after the open and then crude inventories.<\/span>
\nThere’s a definite lack of news out, so let’s talk technicals.<\/span>
\nThe market was on a long losing streak. Then it bounced Monday, but volume was light. Yesterday it was strong early but then sold off most of the day. Today’s open will be well below yesterday’s low and pretty close to Monday’s open. So we got one miserable up day after being deeply oversold? Is that it? Or is this just a test of the recent low before the real move up begins?<\/span>
\nThe reality is Europe still rules. Regardless of how good or bad the charts look, good or bad news from Greece can quickly induce a big move very quickly. This makes the current environment tricky. The trend is down, the path of least resistance is down, sentiment is down. But good news can quickly cause a big short squeeze. We made some good money going short the last couple weeks, and it’s time to take a more defensive stance. In many cases it’s too late to go short, and only select longs can be taken with tight stops.<\/span>
\nHopefully we get some sort of set up soon…either a bounce that can be shorted…sideways movement that will define support and resistance…or a lower low followed by a big move. We need the market to show its cards before we do anything in the near term. 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