Sunday, March 4, 2007

Monday Curtain Raiser

It has been a great day today. My mother in law came over today and gave my wife and me a chance to step out for a dinner sans the three children to celebrate our 14th anniversary. Time sure flies. As some of you know, it was a perfect match in more ways than one since next week will mark the 2nd anniversary of my kidney transplant, which wouldn't have happened were it not for the donation of the kidney from my... wife! I am a very blessed to be married to such a wonderful lady.

Stock futures are looking shabby, no doubt as investors fret about the deepening subprime situation which followed a rough day for the stock market on Friday. S&P futures are also weak as the Yen surges again. Yen futures are up another 80 points tonight to .8660 - not far from resistance in the .87 area; so carry trade concerns remain an issue as well.

11,782 is the 200 day moving average on the Dow-30. Can the bears gun for it this week, or next and help the bulls look a little more serious when they say it's time for a rebound, or consolidation? Just like the real estate bottom callers in January who were trying to convince us that the real estate bust worked itself out in less than a year, the bulls were looking a bit lame about buying on dips last week.

There's a plethora of economic data due in the coming week including Fed data contained in its Beige Book and Friday released of the employment report expected to show non far payrolls like grew by 100,000 (though I wouldn't be surprised to see a lower number due to heavy winters storms in the northern tier of states).

At this point it appears it will be a blue Monday, dark-blue Monday, but take nothing for granted and count no profit until the position is sold. Who knows what news will break between now and 9:30 tomorrow that could change the picture we're seeing tonight. (Perhaps we strike a deal for China to buy Montana and North Dakota for $5 trillion?) Seriously, it's way too early in the game for regulators to try to do anything aggressive before the opening bell Monday morning to stem the likely slide in the stock market; that would only stoke greater fear that systemic risk is larger than we all know - like the system is about the seize up.

Even though last week was tough, the biggie drop, again, was only 3%... 400 points just sounds like a lot. I'm ancient compared to the crowd that works on the street these days, I still can remember when 60 points seemed like a really awful down day in the market. Even the 6 to 9 point drop in S&P futures tonight looks mean, but really it's just garden variety move with volatility back to present levels.

By the way, Kevin at Kevin's Market Blog has great info on his site, as usual. Tonight you can go there to find S&P targets and excellent advice about something he calls the "Fear of Missing Out".

2 comments:

-blessed holy socks, the non-perishable-zealot said...

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Matt said...

Jim,
You are blessed to have someone who cares for you so much. Keep up the good work on the blog!