Live Market Commentary For 05-15-2012

Closing Market Commentary:

Somewhat surprising the markets closed down further than expected, but Mr. market has kept us guessing as to the details. About 3 pm the market decided it had enough for the day and took a nose dive to levels not seen since February this year. Yesterday, I thought we would see a flat to slight gains, but that was not meant to be. Maybe tomorrow, see Bollenger bands of SPY below.

The DOW closed at 12632 down 63.35 or -0.50%, The 500 closed at 1330.66 down 7.69 or -0.57%, $RUT closed at 777.36 down 1.59 or -0.20%, SPY closed at 133.56 down 0.55 or -0.41% and QQQ closed at 63.44 down 0.14 or -0.22%. Interestingly Dr. Copper ended up even lower this afternoon posing a problem for the markets in general if it continues to slide much further than where it closed at 3.49. Gold ended up at 1543, still sinking to perhaps the mid 1500’s. WTI oil slid further down today to the low 93’s and Brent stayed in the 111.75 area for much of the afternoon. The USD closed up at 81.41, the highest since January 15^th. this year.

SPY at the close. The bottom Bollenger band indicates that a possible sideways movement is possible tomorrow.

The 500 at the close. On its way to test its 200 day MA at 1314.

The $RUT at the close. It closed just above its 200 day MA at 752. Next stop looks to be around 757.

The DOW at the close. 12257 looks like its next stop and the 200 day MA is at 12474.

The Indexes at the close. Natural gas is taking a beating.

Noon Market Commentary:

Sea-sawing is the best analogy for the day so far. Markets started down in the dumps as reported and then rose to the resistances from yesterday. Then fell again to test the morning lows only to rise once again to test the highs of today. Currently the markets are consolidating and moving sideways while continuing to trade in a narrow range and a now negative bias. Most have tested or in the process of testing their resistances, but failing to penetrate these levels. Volume has fallen off dramatically and remains mostly red.

The DOW is at 12736 off 40.57, the 500 is at 1342 up 3.72 the $RUT is at 783 up 4.70, SPY is at 134 up 0.32 and QQQ is at 64 up 0.50.

Market Opening Commentary:

Amid heavy volume the ‘dippers’ came in in force and took charge bring the markets up from the premarket doldrums right up to midday highs of yesterday. The green volume is as high as we have seen it for months but wasn’t enough to push the indexes above the resistances made yesterday and still solidly below their 100 day MA’s. The opening highs were clawed away by the bears and by 9:15 a bit of red started to show.

By 10 am the bears were in control again moving the volatile market back up again, but still within a very narrow trading range. Today is going to be a sea-saw as the bears and bulls claw and stomp each other for a position.

Volatility is the name of the game this morning with the $VIX squarely above the 20 demarcation (bearish sediment) at 21.42. The DOW is up 3.03 at 12700 or +0.03, the 500 is up 0.21 at 1338 or +0.02 and the $RUT is down 0.27 at 778 or -0.05. WTI oil is at 94.68 and Brent is 112.04 and the trend is negative for all indexes.

Premarket Commentary:

The premarket started out early just shy of yesterday’s highs (1351) with the SP500 at 1346. The 8:30 financial reporting was mixed but generally not bad. Then at 9 the Total Foreign Investment came and all hell broke lose. The SP500 future fell below yesterday’s lows to 1330 and recovered 5 points to 1335.

The USD rose dramatically from 80.80 yesterday to 81.13 settling in at 81.03. The EUR/USD pair dropped like a rock to 1.2770 and settled at 1.2790, lowest point since January 18. This has been tentatively blamed on the news that the Greek coalition fell apart today.

In other news, Dr. Copper yesterday’s prices has it falling to 3.52 and no support in sight which will certainly put more bearish pressure on the already weak SP500. Gold fell yesterday to 1557 and has since remained in that area with a brief visitation to 1548. More weakness is expected.

@dailyfx:

“U.S. TOTAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT FLOWS FELL $49.9 BILLION IN MARCH, PREVIOUS GAIN REVISED TO $92.6BILLION FROM $107.7 BILLION.”

@SA

“S&P 500 futures add to gains, +0.8% following the 8:30 data dump containing some better and some worse-than-expected figures. The S&P is off about 5% since the month’s start – it may not need much of an excuse to push higher.”

“9:00 AM On the hour: S&P +0.28%. 10-yr -0.03%. Euro -0.11% vs. dollar. Crude +0.12% to $94.89. Gold -0.16% to $1558.45”

@expresso:________

“Equity markets have not been able to shake the weight of influence from outside markets. Greece’s indecision, resulting in the inability to pass austerity measures, continues to haunt Europe and the global economy. Today’s retail sales figures may show whether or not consumers are as positive with their checkbooks as the sentiment data would indicate. Technically, momentum seems to be with the bear camp, which would like to see prices take-out 1345 and 1335 on the downside.”

@foxnews:______

“Retail sales rose 0.1% in April from March, coming up short of the 0.2% increase expected. Excluding the auto segment, sales were also up 0.1%, shy of a 0.2% estimate.”

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Written by Gary