Market Soapbox 04/29/05

DJIA+122 10192;SP500+14 1157;Nasdaq+17 1922;NDX+12 1421
Resistance: DJIA 10370; SP500 1170; Nasdaq 1975; NDX 1460
Support: DJIA 9900 ; SP500 1125 ; Nasdaq 1870; NDX 1375
Strong: Everything Else
Weak: Disk Drive, Telecom, Semis
Dollar: vs Yen: -1.3700 104.7500 ; vs Euro: +0.0020 1.2872
Bonds: 10-yr note -14 ticks yielding +.056 4.20%
Gold: XAU +1.68%; $436.10 +3.70 CRB: 303.74 -0.66
Oil: XOI +0.95%, NYMEX Crude $49.72; -$2.05; -3.96%
52 Week HiLo: NYSE 55/79; Nasdaq 36/126; Amex 12/32
A/D Volume: NYSE 1614/725, Nasdaq 1412/654, Amex 245/46
Volume: NYSE 2.38B, Nasdaq 2.10B

Henceforth, OIL will be NYMEX crude.

Full Schedule of Economic Reports

Upcoming Notable reports:
MON: Apr ISM (est 55.5, Mar 55.2)
TUES: FOMC Policy Statement
FRI: Employment Situation (est 5.3%, Mar 5.2%)

MoM Change; Personal Income +0.5% (est 0.4, Feb 0.4 revised from 0.3), Income is slightly up.

Consumer Spending +0.6% (est 0.5, Feb 0.7 revised from 0.3) spending increase greater than income increase, consumers are spending more than they earn.

Employment Cost Index Q1 +0.7%,(est +1.0, Q4 0.8) confirms small personal income increase, cost increase the smallest in 6 years.

Michigan Consumer Sentiment 87.7 (est 88.9, Feb 92.6) sentiment is down.

Chicago PMI 65.6 (est 62.5, Feb 69.2) probable culprit, slow down in durable goods production.

European (DAX +0.16%) & Asian markets (Nikkei 225 +0.03%) were up slightly. Dollar split vs. Yen/Euro, gold up, oil, commodities & bonds down. Contra action: Oil, dollar & bonds down.

Volume in THURS AfterMarket Nasdaq: 43M; PreMarket: 29M. All 10 sectors up on higher volume. Big Winners: Materials +2.6%, Forest Products +4.6%, Gold +2.9%, Diversified Chemicals +2.4% and Diversified Metals +1.7%.

Oil whipsawing and pullback continues: +6.4% last week, - 4% MON, +4% TUE, -5% WEN (largest single day drop this year), THU down -3.5% but finished slightly up. Today: -4% closed below $50 1st time since mid February, 15% pullback from April high of $58.28.

Today's Sooey!! award goes to: Merrill Lynch which lowered its Q2 earnings estimates for a dozen major U.S. retailers WMT, TGT and GPS etc. The shame is not in the lower estimates, it is in the rationale.

ML cited worries that unusually cool weather in late April hurt sales of spring and summer clothing. Oi vai!!! Its getting deep, forget the boots and save the wristwatch. While ML was shoveling it on deep and thick, they might as well blame locusts and sharks too!!!

Instead of telling the truth, higher interest rates and energy costs are pinching the consumer, ML spun Charlotte's Web and caught my SOOEY!!! PIG,PIG,PIG award.

Yesterday: "Fridays have been consolidation days, players cash in before the weekend. Today they hit the road early, so beware of the bounce: The DJIA still needs to cover his gap @ 10278.75 ... somehow, the non empirical side of me suspect's this weeks pattern will hold, M-W up, T-TH down ." Therefore, FRI up.

Income and costs were in line, PMI and sentiment down, spending more. This was a tonic of rationale for the market along with bond money being freed up for other activities.The market gapped up then crapped to its low for this swing down.

And then the bird cage was opened, at first it was timid, but once it spread its wings, out flew a triple digit up day WITH AUTHORITY. The flight to safety was oil, gold and some sector commodity based stocks.

This morning Bye tech or Hi tech, especially semis, got hit. After KLA Tencor's downside Q4 guidance, the SOX hit a new six month low. Hello! Since last year, I've been banging that drum silly.

The dollar tanked against the Yen, which hit a 5 week high vs. $ and bonds got hit hard. The U.S. Treasury auction is over and players in fear of the Chinese float, rotated out of bonds and back into stocks.

The partially true spin: traders were positioning for a new corporate bond deal and end of the month portfolio rebalancing by fund managers that involved the selling of Treasurys.

For the relatively untold story see todays posts:
The Game is Afoot I, II, III.

Huge AfterMarket volume on the NYSE @ 133M. Looking at the most active, it seems oil stocks will finally get that bid on Monday and tech is going to get slammed. A flight to safety?

Monday's ISM should be benign enough for the market to swallow. However, the RMB issue is much larger. Depending on how that little ditty plays out over the weekend, we could see some major action.

If the RMB issue is real and plays out by Monday, the stock market could either shoot up like a rocket or get slammed. 1) Bonds dip, $ gets outside help, money would flow to stocks, market up big 2) Bonds, the dollar and interest rate sensitive issues tank, a flight to safety in oil and commodities ensues, the market tanks big. Oil futures reaction is the key.

I smell Baccala(dried salted cod) over Risotto(rice), so I'll go out on a limb, with the caveat that the RMB issue does NOT play out this weekend or Monday. In the morning a continuation of todays upward action, which will terminate and then bleed into the close. Possibly setting up Tuesday as a nice consolidation day. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

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