RUT of a day..

A few things to be wary of heading into today’s trade played out.  One was not getting overzealous off the 1st day rally as it’s been the case the past 2 years, this coincides with not chasing the open based on Global markets that would be up playing ‘catch-up’ and finally, the real market ‘noise’ today was the steep rollover continuation of…”..Precious metals, copper rolled over in PM”,  down 3% on the day.   The open was the high 1274SPX and it was all downhill to last week’s highs for ‘dip buyers’ to come in.   The 1260-1263 support might be thin ice as it was generated through the ‘illiquid’ holiday market, so 1254 might the real support test (approx.between 9ma -20ma gauge).  The probability of a need to test 1254 is due to a wary and it wasn't the precious metals selling.

• Wary-  the ‘big’ underperformance today of the “RUT”, which had been the leader during December’s grind higher.  Something to watch, but, maybe just a natural performance spread narrowing between RUT/SPX. Interestingly, the Shadowlist which is comprised of mostly smaller caps held up much better(with reason).

Shadowlist

• Momentum/earnings/“winners of ‘10 –  held up (reason) due to anticipation of “CES Vegas” and possible news flow.
• Commodities-  Our list unaffected by the steep commodity ($CRX) decline due to our focus on AG’s/ Coals (75% AUS. Mines halted).  Favorites in the groups such as MOS, POT, CF, CLF> 4%, WLT  all outperformed. LNN (irrigation) >4% had a noticable bid to any dip.  MOS’s earnings AMC should generate more of the sector upgrades we’ve been noting.
• Consumer-  WYNN, LVS  >3-4% continued to move off…(Casino sub group had very good Macau numbers and WYNN finally got over 105)

All in, the trading notables off our list held up with reasons, any further broad market hiccup would be buying situations.