Something that caught my eye today which is interesting. The S&P has broken it's July 3rd highs (for now) which then indicates we have higher highs and lower lows, which is bullish. We havn't taken out the June highs yet but this is a first step.

Meanwhile, the S&P is right at the upper end of the highest possible down channel you could draw from May. In addition GOOG yesterday broke down through a lower trend line that's been in place for over a year and has been weak today. I had GOOG being at least somewhat of an indicator for the nasdaq figuring when GOOG broke down the rest of the tech market was cooked.

Should be an interesting few days.

Yeah mate, I guess it could happen. re: GOOG and market going up since there are so amny bears.
Dunno about buying puts on bullish days anymore, am too far in the red like. Might as well take all the losses. Worst thing is missing gains on the upside, save for silver, which as always the metals are what help me stem my losses. cheers.

Volume may be boring and the market too steady, but underneath there is an interesting bull/bear struggle today around critical resistance levels.

Re: Bull/Bear Struggle:

There was an interesting statement today by Fed Governor Moskow:

Fed's Moskow: Inflation target debate is healthy; any inflation target should be below 3% - no pressing need for inflation target decision."

Sometimes I like to play what if:

So:
WHAT IF the Fed changes its inflation target?
Or just hints at it.

Or an even bigger WHAT IF: - What if the FED forgets about inflation targeting altogether and goes for "growth"

Tradesman:

Have you read this:

http://hussman.net/html/fedirrel.htm

I think all the fed-watching is just another charade ...

Jock

Jock,

I'm a big fan of John Hussman and I believe his argument that the FED is irrelevant...it makes perfect sense to me. But FED-watching is real and the FED does move the markets....so until the market comes around to the same conclusion as Hussman, I'm afraid FED-watching is part of the game.

Agree. Fed-spokesmmen and Fed-watchers move markets the way any other talking heads do. But that's it. And I think the key is that inflation is programmed in because of profligate non-productive government spending. Like Iraq, where Jos. Stiglitz, Nobel winner and former World Bank Chief Economist estimates that $1-2 Trillion is programmed in, when long-term costs of Iraq (veterans healthcare, and pensions, etc.) are factored in. So, inflation will happen because of THIS war just as it did after Vietnam. Not to mention Medicare Drug Benefits, main Medicare or Social Security costsj ... Talking heads can't counteract this.

Jock-

BINGO. Truth to Power.

DITTO that

Market still overbought ST so let's see how the bulls build on this. Stochastics for most major ETFs (not XLB or XLI) are in the 70s, 80s and 90s so not a lot of room.

If Bennie is gonna pause on the 8th, then I would expect he'll want to give gold a good spankage or else watch it and oil go to the moon. Same with $USD-- a little market intervention to boost it up so it's not sitting at 83.50 on the 9th. Not a prediction but it's what I would do.