If the labor market is improving, how come the long term jobless benefits number and the number of people on food stamps increases nearly every week? 43 million people in the US receiving food stamps, 45 million people are living below the poverty line, these numbers are increasing not decreasing, 700 thousands Americans are homeless.
I just paid $3.95/gallon for gasoline. In late November I was paying 3 bucks at the same gas station. The Continuous Commodity Index – CCI, (60% food, 17% energy and 23% metals) has almost doubled since the low in early 2009 and has gone up 42% in the last 12 months.
I'm done with the rant, though I don't feel any better. In any case, yesterday the stock futures were a little below fair value and off their overnight highs by several points. In the news we had Libyan officials flying to Cairo carrying a message from Gadhafi, a less-than inspiring auction in Portugal, and mixed foreign markets. The S&P futures are down 7 points this morning as the battle for control of Libya and weaker than expected Chinese economic data weighed on markets Thursday while a debt rating downgrade of Spain hit the euro and the bank of England held rates where they were, sighting weak economic conditions.
Moammar Gadhafi (by the way I loved his appearance on SNL) appears to be recapturing ground lost to rebels, investors remain cautious of staking out fresh positions given worries over oil supplies and how the crisis in the Arab world will spread.
Trapped between 1333 and 1295, great trading op for swing traders!
The session began without a significant gap and quickly moved lower before bouncing back into positive ground. But sellers then arrived to sharply take the index back down to the low of the day at 11:00 am. It looked like the bears were in control but they couldn't hold it.
Buyers took the tape quickly up ten points by noon before the SPX spent the entire afternoon in a sideways pattern hovering around the 1320 support/resistance level. This was a ten point range day but the afternoon traded like a three point range.
On the NYSE 3,135 issues were traded with 1,434 advancing issues and 1,599 retreating issues, a ratio of 1.12 to one declining. There were 160 new highs and 10 new lows. The five day moving average of New Highs is 159 while the five day moving average of New Lows is 12 and the ten day moving average of Net Advancing is 325. The Net Advancing data indicates a bullish trend.
Volume was light today and the only thing that jumps out at us was the volume spike early today on the downward move without a corresponding volume spike on the ensuing upward rally. Looking at the Breadth Indicators once again we see a mixed group but leaning towards the bearish side last night and the futures are playing that out this morning.
Sectors stronger than the SPX for Wednesday:
- Financials -- Outperformed the SPX by +8%.
- Consumer Staples -- Outperformed the SPX by +81%.
- Utilities -- Outperformed the SPX by +115%.
- Health Care -- Outperformed the SPX by +29%.
- Consumer Discretionary -- Outperformed the SPX by +37%.
Sectors weaker than the SPX for Wednesday:
- Basic Materials -- Underperformed the SPX by -141%.
- Energy -- Underperformed the SPX by -49%.
- Industrials -- Underperformed the SPX by -8%.
- Technology -- Underperformed the SPX by -27%.
I just paid $3.95/gallon for gasoline. In late November I was paying 3 bucks at the same gas station. The Continuous Commodity Index – CCI, (60% food, 17% energy and 23% metals) has almost doubled since the low in early 2009 and has gone up 42% in the last 12 months.
I'm done with the rant, though I don't feel any better. In any case, yesterday the stock futures were a little below fair value and off their overnight highs by several points. In the news we had Libyan officials flying to Cairo carrying a message from Gadhafi, a less-than inspiring auction in Portugal, and mixed foreign markets. The S&P futures are down 7 points this morning as the battle for control of Libya and weaker than expected Chinese economic data weighed on markets Thursday while a debt rating downgrade of Spain hit the euro and the bank of England held rates where they were, sighting weak economic conditions.
Moammar Gadhafi (by the way I loved his appearance on SNL) appears to be recapturing ground lost to rebels, investors remain cautious of staking out fresh positions given worries over oil supplies and how the crisis in the Arab world will spread.
Trapped between 1333 and 1295, great trading op for swing traders!
The session began without a significant gap and quickly moved lower before bouncing back into positive ground. But sellers then arrived to sharply take the index back down to the low of the day at 11:00 am. It looked like the bears were in control but they couldn't hold it.
Buyers took the tape quickly up ten points by noon before the SPX spent the entire afternoon in a sideways pattern hovering around the 1320 support/resistance level. This was a ten point range day but the afternoon traded like a three point range.
On the NYSE 3,135 issues were traded with 1,434 advancing issues and 1,599 retreating issues, a ratio of 1.12 to one declining. There were 160 new highs and 10 new lows. The five day moving average of New Highs is 159 while the five day moving average of New Lows is 12 and the ten day moving average of Net Advancing is 325. The Net Advancing data indicates a bullish trend.
Volume was light today and the only thing that jumps out at us was the volume spike early today on the downward move without a corresponding volume spike on the ensuing upward rally. Looking at the Breadth Indicators once again we see a mixed group but leaning towards the bearish side last night and the futures are playing that out this morning.
Sectors stronger than the SPX for Wednesday:
- Financials -- Outperformed the SPX by +8%.
- Consumer Staples -- Outperformed the SPX by +81%.
- Utilities -- Outperformed the SPX by +115%.
- Health Care -- Outperformed the SPX by +29%.
- Consumer Discretionary -- Outperformed the SPX by +37%.
Sectors weaker than the SPX for Wednesday:
- Basic Materials -- Underperformed the SPX by -141%.
- Energy -- Underperformed the SPX by -49%.
- Industrials -- Underperformed the SPX by -8%.
- Technology -- Underperformed the SPX by -27%.
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