Trading thoughts, ideas, tips, musings, and pontifications. . .not necessarily in that order.
September starts off will a solid 3-day rally, which has put the Dow Jones Industrials back in the saddle again, or as they say, back in the green for the year! The Russell broke into positive territory on Thursday and confirmed it on Friday. But, all indexes are still off their April highs.
Let’s look for some additional upward movement here. 
Hope you had a wonderfully pleasant long weekend!
We suprisingly had some good homes sales news and FDX boosted its earnings predictions for the fiscal first quarter and the rest of the year! All the indexes closed in the green.
I didn’t think the S&P would get to its 200ma in 1 day, but it did…And the June highs are not that far off. 
The Dow closed above its June highs, while the Russell still has some ground to cover.
We have the House Price Index tomorrow along with consumer confidence. The Stock Trader’s Almanac shows Monday, Thursday and Friday as bullish days. Now that doesn’t mean that’s what will happen, but seasonality does have a vote in this market. But, if you’re a bull, you’ve got to be feeling pretty good! 
It was a good week for the bulls, except for Wednesday giving us a spook. We’ve made new July highs in the indexes and are now shooting for the June highs. The Dow Jones Industrials are the closest, sitting between its 200ma and the high.
The Russell 2000 is also already above its 200ma and July highs, but looking to get to its June highs….but that is still some distance to go. 
The S&P 500 looks to be the weakest, still below its 200ma, but its June highs are also close to the 200.
Overall, the charts are bullish.
Last week we hardly had any economic data besides earnings reports. But this week the data picks up along with earnings reports.
Monday, 7/26:
10:00 – New Home Sales
Tuesday, 7/27:
09:00 – Case-Shiller House Price Index
10:00 – Conference Board Consumer Confidence
Wednesday, 7/28:
08:30 – Durable Goods Orders
10:30 – Crude Oil Inventories
14:00 – Beige Book
Thursday, 7/29:
08:30 – Unemployment Claims
Friday, 7/30:
08:30 – Advance GDP Price Index
08:30 – Employment Cost Index
09:45 – Chicago Purchasing Managers Index
09:55 – University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment
And then we’re all done with July! Thanks for reading and good luck tomorrow!
I hope everyone had a great day trading today! It looks like tomorrow may get a little wild also. INTC had blowout earnings and the futures reacted with splendor immediately, gapping up at the open and staying up there.
The SPX closed while wrestling with its 50ma.
Sure, it’s a speed-bump maybe, but a test of the 200 should be in the cards.
And look at these Advance/Decline volumes today: Russell 2000 +16:1 and both NYSE and Nasdaq +12:1 Those are some impressive numbers. Do they continue? I think tomorrow should be a high volume day…all the people sitting on the sidelines will say, “What the fuck? I’m going in!” and all the shorts will say, “I’m fucked! Let me out.”
And people wonder how I got the name of this blog. 
Lots of trading today….all in S&P (ES) and Russell (TF) emini futures. What a fantastic day! And my oil play via UCO, although still under water, can actually see the surface of the water. 
Okay, now what? We need to see some confirmation, but after a big move like today maybe a breather is in order. Some sideways meandering would not be a bad thing, nor would a small pullback.
My biggest problem, still, is DRYS, it’s been sinking for weeks, along with the BDI. The Baltic Dry Index has fallen for the 30th consecutive session. It is the longest decline in six years. During this swoon, the index has fallen 50% from May 26th.
Here’s some bullish thoughts:
Why Jeff Rubin still sees triple-digit oil prices by 2011
Altucher says S&P ready for 1500
If our president can say it on national TV, I can say it on my measily little blog.
A strange day indeed. The big-caps had a strong day, with the S&P and Dow finishing well into the green. But the small-caps and high-beta stocks were in the red, i.e., the Nasdaq and the Russell 2000. Even though some of the indexes closed red, none had a late day selloff. The RUT and Naz both fought hard to get back to breakeven, which is quite different behavior than the recent closes.
So can the up move continue? Looking at the chart we seem to be in a range here that goes back to January/February…a channel for the S&P of 1050 to 1100. So the first thing we have to do is reach the top of the channel. That would be a nice 50 point move.
Then we can see if we can break back out once we get back to 1100….but it looks like just getting there may be a rough ride. 
If you’re the kinda person that reads this blog it’s not news to you that the markets were F’ugly on Friday. If you haven’t heard that then you can catch up here Dow drops 324 points as euro sinks or here U.S. Stocks Tumble as Job Growth Trails Forecasts. I just made some notes on the charts I looked at after the close:
On Thursday, the Nasdaq rose penetrating its 20-day moving average and pushing toward its next objective, the top of the resistance zone at around 2,325. But today happened instead and the Naz went speedily back under its 200-day moving average. It’s been hanging around there for more than 2 weeks. It just may need to gestate for a little while longer.
The Russell 2000 looks a bit better because it looks like it’s just basing between the 20 and 200 moving averages. It did close lower than its May closing low, but still has a while to get down to its February lows.
The S&P and Dow have been meandering under their 200ma for a couple of weeks. Both are getting pretty close to violating their February low closes. All the indexes, along with many individual stocks, have ugly evening star candlestick formations. 
We still need confirmation of the candlesticks on Monday to see if we continue lower. News events over the weekend will control Sunday night futures trading…which in turn will affect the cash markets. I’d sure like to see oil pickup some and the US dollar to dwindle some, but I’ll play ‘em like I see ‘em. Have a great weekend!
Before I start drinking and eating today, I thought I’d look at the weekly market activity. While all the indexes had a miserable month, the week was a recovery week for all but the Dow. Here’s the Dow weekly chart. Still not bad. It had a poke-thru the 50ma but closed above it.
The S&P 500 had a green week and may have found some support at the 50ma. Notice both the Dow and S&P hit their 200 weekly moving average at the end of April before moving down the month of May to visit the 50ma. 
The Nasdaq is trying to hold above its 200ma and may just stumble along here, unless of course it would like to lead the way up.
The Russell 2000 closed below its 200ma, but so far it’s just a poke through if it can come right back up this week.
Both the Russell and Nasdaq may have tested their 50 week moving averages. Let’s hope it’s a successful test! Now back to the festivities. 
| NASDAQ | 2228.87 | |||||||
| S&P 500 | 1098.87 | |||||||
| ^RUT | 634.25 | |||||||
| QID | 16.67 | |||||||
| QQQQ | 46.25 | |||||||
| QLD | 58.70 | |||||||
| TZA | 32.23 | |||||||
| SSO | 36.60 | |||||||
| SDS | 32.09 | |||||||
| BGZ | 14.14 | |||||||
| BGU | 46.98 | |||||||
Sometimes, entranced by the screens, watching equities, options and futures change colors, charts moving in a wave, and indicators pointing in every direction, I just have to scream....
