'funky' market tape

After Tuesday’s late move, we wanted to see if the individual equities would move today and not just the ES/ETF.    Again, shadowlist composite was pretty flat (excl. base metal commodity stocks) in the midst of the upside showing something amiss.   Looking at the broader tape, discoloration in the markets was seen as the the semi’s and banks were putrid coming off earnings (INTC-JPM) that supposedly were partly responsible for the market lift as far as media hype goes.   Unfortunately, post earnings of INTC LLTC JPM,  we really see no reason to chase these groups.   The semi’s are still in a correction phase and banks foreclosure/ liability issues are a paper weight on investors money.   Listen to CDS spreads widening on banks as a headwind.

How does a market hit fresh intraday highs without these 2 important factors playing a role?.  Well, it seems there is enough liquidity out there to put money into the transports (~3%) , material, commods’ to support the market.     Coming off CSX  earnings, minutes FX benefits that may push euro to 1.43  and all the flow was going in these groups, especially into the mega cap  names (HON UTX types).   So, how did the Nasdaq pull off gains w/o semi’s,  the answer is money is also flowing into the ‘safe haven’ mega caps  like MSFT, CSCO etc.   All in all, the tape is funky and maybe we should just be happy with fresh highs and not be dwelling at the underlying tape, but we’d be fooling ourselves if we had market ‘blinkers’ on to what might be ‘warnings‘.   Tomorrow will be crucial to see how the tape works…