For me, one of the most important indicators of where the market is headed is when there is not a lot of catalyst to give the market a sense of whether its bullish or bearish it still goes either up or down. That gives me a sense of where the market is headed, in terms of, general momemtum.
Today is going to be one of those days. Nearly every indicator and bit of news is basically saying nothing. Starting with futures, as of 8 AM, the futures for the Dow are up just four points, whereas the Nasdaq is actually down a single point. The market is not really getting any clues as to which way it will go and which way it should go. There is no major economic data coming out until 2 PM when the Fed releases its economic barometer, the Beige Book. Other than that, there is really nothing coming out today.
Additionally, there were no major earnings releases to help even drive specific sectors. Even the world markets are confusing because Asia was hit today with a 0.5% to 1 % loss across thboard. Yet, the e European markets opened in the red and proceeded to march upwards and onwards andare up 0.5% to 1% now. Europe did not really have a catalyst either. The only major data point was Germany’s CPI, which believe it or not was just NEUTRAL and met right at expectations.
Some financial news is saying that a weak dollar was the means for the drop out in Asia and Europe, and Europe is less affected by the fluctuations in the dollar, so it hurt the stocks. If it is true that the dollar did have a significant drop this is not good for stocks, and it may be one hint about where we could be headed for the day.
The oil market, though, has skyrocketed on the weak dollar above $71 per barrel and those higher commodity prices seemas of recently, even though it isfundamentallyflawed, has pumped stock prices up higher. This could be a rallying point, but it is pretty weak if there is not at least something else to complement it.
The final news, on the day, that I found pretty interesting was a statement from execs at Boeing and Airbus. The two companies have commented that they do not believe air travel will pick up and return to normal until 2011.…
