{"id":5826,"date":"2012-07-23T07:34:27","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T12:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5826"},"modified":"2012-07-23T07:34:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T12:34:27","slug":"before-the-open-jul-23-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5826","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Jul 23)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets suffered stiff losses. Hong Kong dropped 3%; Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan dropped more than 1%. Europe is currently doing no better. Greece is down over 7%, Austria almost 5%, France, Amsterdam and Norway more than 2%, Germany, Stockholm, Switzerland, London and the Czech Republic more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a massive gap down open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil and copper are getting clobbered. Gold and silver are down.<\/span>
\nI don’t have anything new to add to my weekend report I posted yesterday. I don’t like this market. Whether it’s the declining economic numbers, news flow from Europe or weak technical picture, I don’t like what I see. <\/span>
\nSpanish 10-year yields moved up all last week and are now near 7.5%. <\/span>
\nGreece leaders are set to announce several billion euros worth of budget cuts before officials from the European Commission, ECB and IMF arrive this week. <\/span>
\nGreece’s situation isn’t much different than the US Great Depression in the 1930’s. Spain isn’t far behind. <\/span>
\nChina’s CNOOC is purchasing Canadian oil & gas firm Nexen. <\/span>
\nNRG Energy is acquiring GenOn Energy. <\/span>
\nTwo weeks ago I did a video<\/a> highlighting some negative divergences I did not like. Those divergence remain in place, and a few more have popped up. No matter how I look at the market, I don’t like what I see, yet the S&P made a new higher high last Thursday. It’s as if the US markets don’t care what’s going on in the world, it’s as if investors assume the market will move up because this is an election year. It’s not wise to fight the movement; it’s also not wise to be completely oblivious to what’s going on in the world. When the market drops, it won’t give you a second chance to get out. It’ll just drop and drop and drop. Again, there will be no second chances. <\/span>
\nI’ve been conservative for a couple weeks. That has meant smaller position sizes and quicker exits. Trailing stops are out. You gotta take profits when you have them. Swinging for singles has been the only way to go. 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