Market Outlook for March 17th: Up!

It may be a Happy St. Patrick's Day today, indeed, as it looks like we are headed back up today, after having a slightly down day yesterday. Futures are pointing up because the Housing Starts data showed a good positive surprise this morning. The actual number of Housing Starts was 583,000 which is up 22.2% from last month, which was down 14.7% from December's data. We held the gains from the previous week even though there was a pullback yesterday. We are still over 740 closing yesterday at 754 on the S&P 500. The Dow closed at 7,217 but did go over 7,300 during the session yesterday and then pulled back steadily to the close.

Yesterday I sold some Apple shares to raise some cash and take my profit on the stock. My average price for the stock was $83.50 and the shares I sold for $96.35 for a 15.4% gain. I had also sold some of my TNA shares yesterday that I had purchased at $11.20/share for $15.65/share. That was a 39.7% profit. I still own 90% of my TNA shares. But now I have some cash to buy anything on a market pullback.

This week is Options Expiration on Friday and expect some volatility on Thursday as well. It is difficult to say which direction the market will go by Friday but I still believe the news has been favorable and to me the odds point to going higher. As long as the news infers that we may have bottomed in some major indicators, unemployment claims will still be negative for a while. It might be the most lagging of indicators to watch. I would look at the price of Gold. If Gold can get back below 900 watch the market move up more strongly. Gold is at 916 in pre-market. The low closing last week was 905. We were as low as 820 in January and I can see Gold pulling back significantly to these levels if news continues good.