{"id":6580,"date":"2013-04-24T07:28:42","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T12:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=6580"},"modified":"2013-04-24T07:28:42","modified_gmt":"2013-04-24T12:28:42","slug":"before-the-open-apr-24-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=6580","title":{"rendered":"Before the Open (Apr 24)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning. Happy Wednesday.<\/span>
\nThe Asian\/Pacific markets closed up across the board. Japan rallied 2%, Australia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan rallied more than 1%. Europe is currently mostly up. Belgium is up 1.4%, France, Germany, Amsterdam, Switzerland and the Czech Republic are doing well too. Futures here in the States point towards a positive open for the cash market.
\n<\/span>
\nThe dollar is down. Oil and copper are up. Gold and silver are up.<\/span>
\nYesterday, the market followed through on Monday’s gains. Volume was heavy, but this may be due to the mini midday crash.<\/span>
\nWhen the week began, a bounce made sense. But the first move is the easy move. Now we need support from a number of sources for me to believe the rally can continue. Key stocks needed to firm and move up, key groups needed to perform better and some breadth indicators needed to improve. So far, so good. I don’t expect everything to happen at once.<\/span>
\nOur canary in the coal mine (CAT) has done great the last couple days. Banks, semis and several other groups have played a leadership role. And a few indicators have started acting better. All in all it’s been a good first step. If the improvement continues, it’s possible a bottom is in place. Be patient. We’ve gotten lots of ups and downs lately, so there’s no clear signal.<\/span>
\nApple (AAPL) did well with earnings but Q2 guidance was less than expected. The stock popped 5% in after-hours trading but is now down about 12 bucks (3%).The company said they’ll be returning $100B to shareholders by the end of 2015 in the form of a stock buy-back and increased dividend. Here’s the chart. It looks dreadful…it looks like a gold stock.<\/span>
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\nThe jury is out. Was last week’s weakness a pullback within an uptrend or the beginning of a correction. We don’t know the answer yet. When the week began all signs pointed towards a bigger correction, but things have improved some. I still lean towards a correction but am open to a bottom being in place. Don’t guess…the charts will guide us. 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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