Russell 2000 Small Cap Leads The Way For Further Market Deterioration

The markets opened down from yesterday’s close and have a negative bias. A market correction has been seen as a near-term event, and anything up to a 5% (1350 on SP500) is believed to be possible. I see 1390’s as a possible support on the 500 and 1375 as the next stop. Each of which is possible because of the low volume moves of the markets.

The 10 minute volume was light and green and buying of the dip is in progress. The DOW opened at 13069 down from 13126, the 500 opened at 1397, down from 1405 and the Russell 2000 opened at 829 down from 834. The first support of $RUT is around 829 and premarket touched on 828. Breaking through that will signal further deterioration of the markets.

SSO is at 57.39, SPY is at 139.57, WTI oil is at 105, Brent is at 123, GLD is at 161, SLV is at xx and gold is falling at 1656.

This mornings financial reports were ignored by the premarket crowed remaining flat. Oil and Gold remained flat too. The USD dropped from 79.52 this morning to 79.36 after the announcements.

@telegraph: “The latest US jobless figures are out and show the number of new people claiming unemployment benefits fell again, down 5,000 to 359,000.

It wasn’t altogether good news however – the jobless figures for last week were revided up to 364,000 people, from the 348,000 announced last week.

Economists were also expecting the figure for this week to fall to 350,000.”

For those concerned with a war against Iran and are looking for protection through options, this is a timely article. Any action in the Middle East will surly mess up the market place and will be the ‘Black Swan Moment’ of the year.

@zerohedge: “Following last Friday’s majority vote by the Israel Security Council authorizing Iranian “action” when required, answering the “if“, the only open question remains “when.” As it turns out, based on the following analysis by Rapidan Group, there are only 10 or so distinct 10 day New Moon windows for the remainder of 2012.

If one removes the sandstorm prone months of April, July and September, there are 7 periods in which a military strike is realistic. Also CVN 65 is moving at a snail’s pace and is just now approaching the Straits of Gibraltar.  Since any action will likely not take place unless 3 aircraft carriers are in the vicinity, and because the ICE yesterday instituted ultra-short term trading spike curbs in crude, starting April 1, one can likely eliminate the immediately proximal March 17-27 window.

Which leaves six. Our advice would be to buy up OTM calls in Brent in the days just ahead of the start of any such window, as any “surprise” attack will have a uplifting impact on all combustible assets, doubly so for levered ones.” (Read Article Here)

Written by Gary