Closing Market Commentary For 04-23-2013
Today’s 2 minute flash crash at ~1:08 this afternoon was caused by hacking the AP twitter account and broadcasting a false tweet that the US President has been injured in a White House explosion. The DOW lost all of today’s gains falling 146 points before recovering 146 points. What actually caused the crash was the HFT algo computers reacting to the news, pure and simple. So where were the circuit breakers? This whole market and how it is supervised is bull patties.
Markets closed up on low volume leaving investors wondering what tomorrow’s action will be.
A lot of investors lost a bundle when their ‘trailing stops‘ were initiated and several minutes later the markets were back up exactly where they were.
One interesting observation regarding today’s flash crash is that the monies went straight into the Treasuries and not into gold. But remember, this was done by computers, not humans.
AAPL Beats Revenues And EPS As Margins Decline, Guides Lower, Boosts Buyback And Dividend
Apple is out with Q2 results which are hardly inspiring. Revenue and sales beat, but margins missed and guidance is weak:
The good news: Q2 Revenue: $43.6 billion, Exp. $42.3 billion
Q2 EPS: $10.09, Exp $9.98
And the not so good news: Q2 margin weaker than expected 37.5%, Exp. 38.5%
And Q3 revenue seen at $33.5-$35.5 billion far below the estimate consensus $38.4. Remember: AAPL no longer sandbags the future
For those looking for a special dividend you won’t see it, instead will have to satisfy with a buyback expansion by $50 billion (eventually), and an increase of 15% in the running dividend.
What we read this afternoon.
From A Twitter Hack To The Complete Evaporation Of All Market Liquidity In One Chart
March 2013 New Home Sales Growth Rebounds Partially From Last Month
The DOW at 4:00 is at 14709 up 152 or 1.05%.
The SP500 is at 1577 up 16 or 1.04%.
SPY is at 157.79 up 1.69 or 1.03%.
The $RUT is at 926.80 up 12 or 1.31%.
NASDAQ is at 3267 up 34 or 1.05%.
NASDAQ 100 is at 2835 up 25 or 0.90%. (A lot of analysts are currently watching the 100 for a heads and shoulder formation.)
The longer trend is up, the past months trend is bullish, the past 5 sessions have been bullish and the current bias is up.
WTI oil is trading between 83.39 and 89.40 today. The session bias is bullish and is currently trading up at 89.36.
More Widening For The Brent/WTI Spread ahead?
Brent crude is trading between 100.60 and 98.80 today. The session bias is bullish and is currently trading down at 100.39.
Gold fell from 1427.50 earlier to 1404.50 and is currently trading up at 1414.69.
Here’s why copper has lost its indicator role
Dr. Copper is at 3.089 rising from 3.059 earlier.
The US dollar is trading between 82.66 and 83.20 and is currently trading up at 83.15, the bias is currently bullish.
The 500 at the close.
The DOW at the close.
Interesting thoughts from Rick Ackerman.
No Trader Left Behind
Trading profitably can be harder than it looks. Many who have struggled toward this goal think that just because they’ve figured out a way to hold losses down to $30 of $40 a day, that only a small improvement is needed to turn those losses into steady, daily profits.
This is in fact a deception, like the carnival midway game where one gets three pitches to knock down some milk cartons. Lots of players manage to scatter one or two of the cartons with the first pitch. But try knocking down the last and you’re likely to come away thinking that a Category 5 hurricane couldn’t do the job.
So it goes with trading. Anyone with even rudimentary risk management skills can find a way to lose “only” $50 a day. But making $50 on average? That’s quite a trick.
To contact me with questions, comments or constructive criticism is always encouraged and appreciated:
Written by Gary
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