DJIM #7 2010

A whipsaw week finshed as it opened.  The market continued it’s up and down routine right to the end as China ‘RRR’ so-called surprise headline hit Friday premarket sending the SPX to low 1060’s once again.   As pointed out premarket, we didn’t see it as a surprise feeling any negative reaction would be exaggerated.  The fear mongers were out early, but rationality set in as the day progressed and CNBC began to have guests on that believed the same thing we did and the market started to rally back on the heels of tech.    We’ve been saying we need a meaningful close above 1071 and now we have back to back ones that should change the tone to a more technial positive one for the short term.   Also, finally, we had some dip buying come back to the market.  Some buying was probably generated by better than expected eco’ data (Jobless claims, Retail).  Last week was pretty quiet on US eco’ data,  despite the shortened week ahead, it will be busier and important as we get fresh looks at February data.

All eyes were on commodity linked stocks last week,  but tech ($SOX) quietly came in the back door and duplicated it’s Thursday move on Friday as some money started to rotate into them from commods’.   As pointed out,  we think this is anticipation of some earnings reports in the upcoming week from some big names.   Market might be anticipating more estimate revisions because of the reports coming up, giving potential for a bounce in the sector.

On the topic of earnings and tech many names from February released reports (mostly January Q end) are trading well.  Names this Q include, VECO  NETL DLB  and cheaper names like SFLY APKT MKSI  and stocks in other groups like HAR CMI EMS  have also had good reactions.  

M&A activity in Ag’ space this weekend may provide a bid to these linked stocks.

Market is still on a fog on as it tries to look at something it can’t see clearly..Greece, China.  These are market stresses, but, if the market concentrates some more on what’s happening here, hopefully with the help of some eco‘ data this week,  it has a chance to stay away from recent lows.   Importantly,  there are some open spots in the fog to trade day to day, eg. commodity linked stocks or possibly some more tech ahead.   Either way, recent earning plays are providing a pretty good place to trade.

That's it?

Was that it?.   Was the gap down to only 1153 SPX,  the pullback/ consolidation before end of Q dressing, we’ve been discussing as a possibility into Q end.   If that’s all there was, than it was quite impressive.  “Performance Anxiety” was at it’s best and shorts were at their best running to cover at the first hint of today’s reversal after laying down some fresh positions over past few days, including some very early today.   Waiting for a decent pullback seems to be a lost cause into Q end and earnings season unless an unexpected ‘catalyst’ hit’s the wires or familiar liquidation.   “Worries” over China, Greece, and HCare today are just that…’worries’ that come and go on a daily basis and the market has started to deal with it, seemingly by finally believing in a recovery.   The action in what we call consumer discretionary stocks was definitely present today as Casino’s  did one of those regular Q squeezes on an upgrade/ some newsflow and Auto  related stocks rode the ALV report. (HAR  a shadow stock at B/O levels and MGA  is where we look.  

We all can crazy guessing where this market goes next, the nuances of the SPX,  let’s not worry and continue to just concentrate on individual stocks selection and sectors.   Even, not following the HC bill and the sectors involved,  we still dug up a shadowlisted stock to play into the story, EMS  last week on an alert on the story at $54-55 hit $61 today. 

Two things can happen, the market can roam freely and grind higher till Q end on performance anxiety and /or even until early April when the next eco’ data of significance the NFP (next Friday) &  AA-INTC earnings in reminiscent fashion of last Q or we get one of those big dreaded ‘liquidation’ moves from the hedgies we’ve seen more than once at Q end after a run-up.    Again,  let’s not worry either way by just not outweighing positions in numbers or size and take it (profits) where we can along the way and hope a move up/or down is not exaggerated for the sake of a future healthy market.   As long as new highs are being confirmed on a seemingly daily basis from different indexes,  the momentum grinder is in the Bulls hand.