Wednesday, April 16, 2008

today's market

it was a great day for the bulls, but we've seen this sort of action several times this year, and the market has been unable to build on it. we had a big point move and acceleration of buying into the close, breadth was excellent and volume picked up, although it is still fairly light. most important, for those that believe, the major indices all moved back up over key resistance levels and now have the highs of early april as the next major upside hurdle.

although earnings from intc, jpm and wfc will receive the credit for driving the market today, the strength continues to be in the same names that have had the best relative strength all year -- fertilizers, solar energy, steel, various commodities and energy were running hot and heavy. technology and financials were trading better, but they definitely have more work to do if they are going to take a leadership role.

the parabolic moves in some of the agriculture and oil names are a bit worrisome. those moves are at odds with the obviously weak economy in the us and have to be inflationary at some point. we'll see how this develops, but some of the momentum favorites are becoming awfully frothy here.

ibm earnings are out and look quite good. a good report was expected, and this is well above the already high expectations. the stock is up on the news and the indices are higher. mer is up in the morning, and if it doesn't pull any major surprises, we are in good shape for further upside.

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