Planet Wealth

The sellers jumped on the open pushing the slightly higher futures to the downside in early trade.  A great earnings report from D.R.

In addition to all the factors noted in today's earlier blog, the January ISM (which is manufacturing data) came in at a much better than expected 58.4.  The January reading was also much higher than the 54.9 reading in December.  For reference, any reading above 50 indicates growth.  The sellers took another couple of shots throughout the day, but never really threatened to reverse the rally and seemed to give up in the afternoon letting the bulls have the day.  The strength of today's rally may well hold for another day or two, however that will then be the big test of

The market followed the futures and opened to the upside.  In the first few minutes, the first selling attempt has already occurred.  On the positive side, the market is oversold and due for at least a bounce to hold a couple of days.  In addition, we have the start of a new month where normally mutual funds and institutions will put new money to work.  As mentioned in last night's podcast, the dollar bears watching as it is a bit overbought and weaker this morning.  That could well play into the bounce theory.  The day's action will be very interesting to watc

That's Greece as in the country, not "Grease" as in the play.  Blow-out earnings from the likes of AMZN, MSFT, our SNDK and even the launch of the AAPL iPad have not been enough to move the market higher.  We had a huge GDP report this morning, showing the economy grew 5.7%, which is the highest growth rate since 2003 which did move the futures higher.  That was then piggybacked by the Chicago PMI coming in at a higher than forecast rate of 61.5 (57.4 expected).  A reading above 50 indicates growth in the midwest region.  Even the Michigan sentiment survey came in h

After some intial volatility, the market is treading water waiting on the Fed announcement at 2:15pm est.  The expectation would be for a little more volatililty following the announcement as many will be dissecting every word in the statement.  However, it would be difficult to imagine any meaningful move prior to the "State of the Union" address this evening.

The expected bounce that was mentioned in the weekend podcast continued in the first half of trade on Tuesday only to disappear into the close.  The market is waiting to hear from the FOMC on Wednesday afternoon and then President Obama gives the "State of the Union" address on Wednesday evening.  Little change is expected from the Fed, however as we have seen lately the market now becomes very nervous every time President Obama speaks as his recent appearances are sounding anti-Wall Stree and the policies anti-business.  The market bounce ran out of gas at the

What you watch for after an important support/resistance level has been broken is the testing process.  We talked about that intra-day yesterday.  We are now watching for the close today.  The market made one attempt to run back to that 1120 level only to be met with more sellers.  It certainly didn't help today with the government making waves once again, this time postponing the vote to confirm Bernanke for another term.  Talk about uncertainty....the market will not respond well if Bernanke is not confirmed.  This noise out of Washington is starting to feel

 As you are aware, the market closed below 1120 and on higher volume with that VIX breaking above resistance to boot!  Not a promising day for the upside.  However, as mentioned earlier it takes two closes to be meaningful so tomorrow is very important.  GOOG had good numbers, but the sell the news trade continued as GOOG was down big after hours.  Even AMD had absolutely blow-out numbers and even it traded lower after hours.  The market hates uncertainty and the government seems intent on creating more controversy by attacking capitalism.  I could go on a

We've had one failed attempt to break back above 1120.  At 2:30, the S&P broke above 1120 on some good volume only to fire and fall back.  GOOG reports earnings after the close and it may take a great report from GOOG to save the rally.  The trade has been to sell on the news on some great earnings reports however, therefore can GOOG blow-out the earnings enough to propel the market higher?  We won't have to wait long to find out.

Check out a chart of the SPX.  Notice how we broke below 1120 around 11:45am and have been testing it ever since.  If the market is not able to break back above 1120, we may see more selling into the close.