{"id":5818,"date":"2012-07-20T07:48:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-20T12:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5818"},"modified":"2012-07-20T07:48:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-20T12:48:10","slug":"before-the-open-jul-19-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5818","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jul 20)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed mostly down, but Japan (down 1.4%) was the only 1% mover. Europe is currently mostly down. Austria and France are down 1.5%; Greece is up 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. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nSpanish borrowing costs are rising again. Yields on the 10-year are back above 7%. <\/span>
\nMSFT and GOOG are both up in premarket trading – earnings related.<\/span>
\nGE is down – also earnings related.<\/span>
\nThe nature of the market the last two months is it’s either moved straight up or straight down, and almost all reversals have been sudden and out of the blue. Because of this, using a trailing stop has not been a good idea because a perfectly good trade with a nice paper profit could easily be cut in half without any prior notice in a short period of time. Being ahead of the curve taking profits – even when stops are targets have not been hit – has been the way to go. You goal is to make money, to pull money from the market. Your goal isn’t to be right or nail a move perfectly. Pull money from the market and don’t worry about leaving crumbs on the table.<\/span>
\nI looked at many charts yesterday and didn’t come away with a strong bias. There are more long set ups than shorts but not enough to get me excited about being aggressive. The market is trending up, but it’s not a strong trend. The bulls have had the upper hand, but they are not totally in control. Because of this, I’ve had a defensive posture lately, and I see no reason to change. We’re playing baseball here. The current nature of the market is we’re not getting great pitches to swing at, so be content to hit mostly singles and an occasional double. Don’t even think about swing for the fences. Even if you get a great pitch, the wind is blowing in. \ud83d\ude42<\/span>
\nMore 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