The Local's Take: Afternoon Commentary

Good Afternoon,
Way to go Mavs! That is how a team plays! Sorry "Lebroshwade".

A relatively quiet day today as we sorted out some of Friday's trading. For the most part, sellers were in control as they sold each rally today. First we were up almost 60 pionts and sold most of that off and then mid-day we tried to climb again to up 35 points and all of those gains were erased.

We have retail sales tomorrow so with the recent batch of bad data, the uptick in unemployment numbers means how long do you want to get in front of the number. This was a classic day of "fading" the outside ranges, meaning if we were 60 points up, that was too much. If we broke 60 points, we were oversold. If we rallied another 40, you could go against it. To sum it up, a rather rangebound day with some good opportunities to day trade equities. For forex, it meant very small ranges during the USD session. The one opportunity was picking up the EUR/USD after it broke 400 pips:

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Next up, the SPY. Let's look at it on an intra-day:

Past performance is not indicative of future results.
This is today's data and you can see some clear tops - selling when overbought was the way to go today.
Let's look at AXP to see the exhaustion of a double top?

Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Maybe sellling puts is a way to get into the stock as the June 48's are giving 1% for 4 days. Again, given a lot of data coming out, let's not get married to any one stock.

Looking at the sector that got hammered today (commodities), are there some good buys out there? Remember, focus on the percentages, and remember, you always have the right to get out of your obligation.
Looking ahead:
**Retail sales tomorrow - weak given latest capture of oil price spike? I am saying we should come in as expected or just under - nothing drastic.
**Unemployment claims on Thursday - probably a bigger worry than anything else right now
**Inflation data - Duh! But the fed says it isn't a problem, plus prices have "abated" a bit
Happy Trading and Be Environmentally Cool
Coach Brian

Forex trading is   one of the riskiest forms of investment available in the financial   markets and suitable for sophisticated individuals and institutions. The   possibility exists that you could sustain a substantial loss of funds and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to   lose.