Holding on...

Perhaps, today's action should've occurred yesterday with 880-875 holding steady.   Nobody liked the fact these levels looked so fragile and breakable yesterday, but the market’s complacency has to be tested.    In any case, we regained some ground and we are currently just a couple of points above 880.    Breadth was very good as the vast majority plays on our watch list tagged on the some reasonable gains.  Overall, Commodity, Bank- Brokers, Tech linked stocks fared well.  We discussed the probability individual stocks will play catch up to yesterday futures/SPY inclined late day rally and it's clear individual stocks outperformed the SP tape.   Click on-below of snapshot of a watchlist at 11:30am.  Besides Casinos that were tradeable intraday, you pretty well needed to buy yesterdays move, maybe premkt to take advantage of some of the upside below.  The numbers didn't change much in the next 4-5hrs, indicative of the flat broad market tape all day.

Some jitteriness and anxiety can be felt this week as market participants want to see a meaningful move, but it’s only chance is next week with earnings hitting the wires.  Buyers were absent yesterday despite the upside move and this continued today as we only had a modest gap open and flat morning.  Sellers aren't around either as all wait for next week.   The SP futures hovered for hours around 883, watch 884.25 as this resistance area comes with buy stops.  This may lead to a pop if busted when re-visited.

Based on the volume, we are fully anticipating some heated action in the coming weeks.    GS INTC IBM JPM... are just a few big names reporting next week in the first wave of earning reports.     In between, there are many smaller companies which we have to pay our close attention to.   The big ones may give you the headline, but the smaller ones are the ones that represent opportunity.    Of course, we need the big companies to deliver sound and optimistic reports in order to dampen last weeks NFP#.  We'll need to see 'GROWTH' and not more of the 'NO WORSE THAN EXPECTED' type reports.  Everything that was said and speculated will be proven in the next few weeks.    Like always, we are very excited to trade in the coming earning season as last Q provided many new names to our shadowlist.

Other than the casino sector we alerted early(LVS WYNN PENN WMS ASCA HOT  off our list),  there's really not much excitement out there as positive (not worse than expected) eco' and corporate #'s held the tape in tact.    We aren't eager to trade into today's action as some plays are still looking to stabilize.    Given how the past quarter has fared,  we feel a lot of market players are simply doing exactly the same as us.    It is just a few days away now and we are ready to pound on any winning report