Well, so much for a sell-off in oil!
Although we had a rally back into the close, we failed to break our day's levels of Dow 12,500, S&P 1,350, Nas 2,325, NYSE 9,100, Russell 700 and SOX 360. At 12:54 I had reminded members that we needed to hold them to stay bullish and we just couldn't get them back at the day's end. Oil hit $112 per barrel intra-day, $2 over our target high due to a greater than expected draw in inventories, possibly due to Srping Break driving but any excuse was a good excuse for the NYMEX pump crowd, who were chomping at the bit to make that new high.
Notice in the Spring Break article that 17% of the people surveyed by AAA have CANCELED their summer vacation plans due to gas prices and another 23% have "revised" their plans. This does not bode well for the travel industry and perhaps EXPD and PCLN are ripe for a fall. Another fuel demand booster last week was the cancellation of over 1,500 flights by American Airlines (now up to 2,500) which stranded roughly 200,000 passengers, many of whom were forced to drive instead. Add to all that some persistently cold weather and you have a surge in fuel demand but we'll have to wait until next week to see if it's a one-hit wonder or not.
On the whole, it's been a decent 7 sessions of consolidation since the last time we put up the Big Chart so I'm not too worried just yet:
|
|
|
10-Day |
25% |
20% |
Feeling |
200 |
|
Index |
Current |
Move |
Terror |
Horror |
Better |
DMA |
| Dow | 12,527 | 311 | 10,644 | 11,354 | 11,808 | 13,373 |
| Transports | 2,565 | 49 | 2,336 | 2,491 | 2,591 | 2,844 |
| S&P | 1,354 | 39 | 1,182 | 1,261 | 1,311 | 1,488 |
| NYSE | 9,074 | 312 | 7,790 | 8,310 | 8,642 | 9,775 |
| Nasdaq | 2,322 | 61 | 2,146 | 2,289 | 2,380 | 2,614 |
| SOX | 364 | 25 | 419 | 447 | 465 | 472 |
| Russell | 698 | 15 | 642 | 684 | 712 | 800 |
| Hang Seng | 24,187 | 1338 | 24,000 | 25,600 | 26,624 | 24,364 |
| Nikkei | 12,945 | 420 | 13,725 | 14,640 | 15,226 | 16,729 |
| BSE (India) | 15,695 | 51 | 15,900 | 16,960 | 17,638 | 16,545 |
| DAX | 6,631 | 141 | 6,088 | 6,494 | 6,753 | 7,704 |
| CAC 40 | 4,810 | 139 | 4,626 | 4,934 | 5,132 | 5,752 |
| FTSE | 5,946 | 273 | 5,066 | 5,403 | 5,619 | 6,435 |
See – On the whole it's not too bad is it? We added a green box on the Transports and the Russell and didn't lose any – that's a good move overall! As long as we don't give up all of those gains this week, then it's 2 week's worth of additional consolidation under our belts as we begin earnings season – things certainly could have been worse.,,
The Fed is auctioning off another $50Bn in notes tomorrow as our need for money to fund tax cuts, wars and corporate wealthfare never ends. I was really disgusted today to see the White House mobilizing the troops and pressuring Congress on the "urgency" of passing the Free Trade Agreement with Columbia (which is a Human Right's Watch all-star, with THOUSANDS of trade unionists murdered, routine kidnappings, drug running…) while yet another 7,000 American families lost their homes TODAY and another 4,000 Americans lost their jobs TODAY – that's been going on for 2 years with no real action from the administration, who gathered on the White House lawn today to urge Congress to immediately address Columbia's trade status.
Not since Marie Antionette said "Let them eat cake" has a political leader been so insultingly indifferent to the suffering of his own people.
