Bear Mountain Bull

It’s time again for a little BMB R&R, especially with the market behaving as bizarrely as it’s been. Maybe if we stop watching it start to behave a little better…

Posting will be very light and variable over the course of this week, but we’ll put up an open thread each market day for our readers to comment on the day’s market activity or to post any interesting links they might run across.

Check the space below for whatever the latest might be during this ‘off’ time, and please visit the various sites in the ‘Links’ and ‘Regular Stops’ for up-to-date market news and analysis.

BMB will be back in full swing by next weekend.

Hmm. The leftist candidate in Mexico looks to have lost a close election, and of course, the claims are already being made that the election was “stolen”.

This is becoming an all-too familiar story. Can’t anyone win an election anywhere anymore - right or left - without them being accused of “stealing” it? And no, sending Jimmy Carter is not the answer…

When it comes to one of Cramer’s picks, it doesn’t matter how he touted it or why he touted it - as a matter of fact, it doesn’t even matter when he touted it - they’ll buy it anyway!

Hah. That’s pretty funny. But why am I not surprised?

Even though this is pretty much a holiday weekend, the US government can’t afford to take a week off from auctioning its debt. The results this week have the 3-month T-Bill at an investment yield of 5.088%, and the 6-month at 5.297%.

This is pretty much just another chapter in a rather long story. US auto makers sales fell in June, while Toyota sales gained 14.4 percent.

And General Motors saw their sales fall 25.7%, yet GM is the leading stock in the Dow this year. Go figure.

A pretty meaningless day, but here’s the scores: the Dow gained 78 points(+0.7%) to 11228, the S&P 500 added 10 points (+0.8) to 1280 and the Nasdaq picked up 18 points (+0.8%) to 2190. The Russell 2000 was higher by 6 points (+0.9%) to 731. The Dow Transports finished up 0.9% and the Utilities were 1.1% higher. Bonds leaked lower, and yields drifted higher: 6-month 5.26%, 2-year 5.17%, 5-year 5.11%, 10-year 5.15% and 30-year 5.20%.

Market internals were positive on the lightest trading of the year thus far. Advances/declines were 14 to 5 on the NYSE and 3 to 2 on the Nasdaq, with up/down volume 3 to 1 on the NYSE and 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 102/47 on the NYSE and 88/33 on the Nasdaq.

These were the big movers in the groups - well, at least the ones I know of. Some of the index data isn’t showing up, so I can’t speak for all of them. Transports gained 2.3%, followed by brokers (+1.8%), computer tech (+1.5%), commodities (+1.5%), natural resources (+1.5%), REITS (+1.3%), steel stocks (+1.2%), computer hardware (+1.1%) and telecom (+1.1%). Homebuilders fell 0.6%.

Energy and metals markets did not trade, and the dollar was basically unchanged.

BMB Note: Can’t draw any conclusions from today’s action, but the gains still count!

We’ll see how things shape up starting Wednesday. Have a great 4th.

The major indices are showing early gains, and breadth is positive on the NYSE but only flat on the Nasdaq. The groups looks mostly green, but I’m missing the reports on some of the biggees, like the $SOX, $OSX, $XAU, and $HGX. I guess that’s what happens when not everyone shows up for work.

Bonds are off a bit, yields higher, and the dollar is holding fairly steady. Most commodities are not trading today.

Not everybody’s taking today off. Chris Johnson managed to crank out this week’s outlook, and says that the technical and sentiment picture points higher:

Wrapping it up, the market appears ready to move higher based on the combination of pessimistic sentiment, improving technicals (given that the above scenario plays out),and a fairly healthy fundamental picture. With earnings season set to engage on July 10 (we’ll cover this next week), the market may find a sweet spot to rally on should earnings come in at or above expectations. For the time being, investors should find the current market worthy of some bargain hunting as a short-term bottom appears to be more likely than a few weeks ago.

Even on a shortened trading day, we see a few numbers coming out: May construction spending down 0.4%, the June ISM index fell from May, but the new orders component was higher.

Deron Wagner tells us to keep an eye on the major indices, and see how they react now that they have bounced back up into the vicinity of their 50-day moving averages:

Going into today’s shortened session, keep an eye on how the S&P, Nasdaq, and Dow all react near their 50-day moving averages. Both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average ran into resistance of their 50-day MAs last Friday. The Nasdaq Composite is still just below its 50-day MA. As mentioned in the June 30 issue of The Wagner Daily, resistance of the prior highs from June 2 is also a pivotal level…

Support on both the S&P and Dow should be found at their 200-day moving averages, along with the prior highs of the trading range that began in June 15. The Nasdaq still remains below its 200-day MA, but it has support of its prior trading range that began in mid-June as well. None of the major indices will technically be in an uptrend until they break out above their June 2 highs and set a subsequent “higher low.” However, upside momentum from the break of the seven-week downtrend lines should help to prop up stocks at least in the short-term.