{"id":6254,"date":"2012-12-21T08:23:06","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T13:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=6254"},"modified":"2012-12-21T08:23:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T13:23:06","slug":"before-the-open-dec-21-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=6254","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Dec 21)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Friday. Happy Quad Witching Day.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed down across-the-board. India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan each dropped about 1%. Europe is currently mostly down, but no index is down more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a huge gap down for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is up. Oil is down, copper is up. Gold is flat, silver is down.<\/span>
\nIt’s all about the fiscal cliff. A vote was scheduled in the House last night, but it was canceled because it was obvious it had no chance of passing. S&P futures plunged about 50 points before quickly recovering, and now they’re down about 20. <\/span>
\nWall St. has gotten complacent. It assumes a deal will be made and life will go on. We’ve even gotten some positive comments the last week the two sides were making progress, so the cancellation of last night’s vote was a big shock, a big reminder. <\/span>
\nThis is a very good interview by Yahoo’s The Daily Ticker. In it, the likelihood of Wall St. feeling some pain (meaning the market drops a bunch) before a deal is reached is discussed.<\/span><\/p>\n

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GE is buying the aviation unit of Avio, an Italian company, for $4.3B.<\/span>
\nResearch in Motion (RIMM) did better than expected with earnings. The stock jumped in after-hour trading but then gave everything back plus another 12.5%.<\/span>
\nNike (NKE) is up 4% premarket…earnings related.<\/span>
\nWalgreens (WAG) is down 1.4%…earnings related.<\/span>
\nIf nothing else today’s open will serve as a big reminder not to get lazy with positions. You can’t sit back and relax and assume things will work out in a timely manner. When the S&P is 100 points off its low and a few warnings pop up, you gotta take partial profits, manage remaining shares wisely and be a little more cautious with new trades. A deal in Washington will get done, but it’s unknown when. It’s the same dilemma one deals with when the market is likely to correct. Do you hold through a correction or exit positions with intentions of re-entering at lower prices? If you know me, you know I err on the side of taking profits too soon because there’s rarely a shortage of charts to play. <\/span>
\nOn a brighter note, the world didn’t end. \ud83d\ude42 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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