Steady the market goes flirting with a breakout of October highs is the best way to describe the slow and tight range trading action today. This is nice consolidation action since most of ’12 gains came on the first day of trading. The same trends continue..” Traders (mostly) putting money on economic/cyclical related sectors”…The BKX (financials) tacked on more gains as it outperformed again (~+7% YTD). A switch into higher beta sectors is still evident, today we saw it in tech as well with semi’s up ~2% vs.the safety of software linked stocks.
The most important aspect today was China (Shang ‘index) getting on track off bank lending #’s jumping 2.9%. Shanghai index was a wary noted yesterday. If this is the beginning of a reversal in the China market, it’s a very good sign for U.S markets to go higher as risky assets would rise out of better China sentiment.
In all, the positive momentum continues and can only get a boost from Asia. Europe looms in the closet, but remains quiet allowing traders to have an upward bias as well.