Market update April 9th, 2009

The stock market has been dropping slowly the past few days. It hasn't been with the wild swings we have come to expect, although yesterday had a 200 point swing on the Dow and closed down 180 points, closing below the 7,800 level at 7,790. The good news is that Volume has been down this week compared to Monday and Tuesday last week. So today is an important day as we really need to close above the 7,800 as it is a slippery slope down from here.

The Put to Call ratio has risen the past few days to 0.96, and while not high gives a chance to have the markets rise today. Cooperating in that endeavor is the VIX Index, which a measure of market Volatility. It closed again at 40.39 yesterday, off its high of 42.50 yesterday.

The government is extending loans for troubled institutions from 3 to 5 years which is helping ease concerns and last but not least, President Obama is back from the G-20 meeting in Europe and the side trips he took to Turkey and Iraq. It will be good to see him back on the economic issues, as these are his number one priority.

Earnings announcements will be the focus over the next week or two as to the real health of the economy. But they too are a look backwards. Watch for markets to react positively even when there is bad news from a company, as the news wasn't as bad as expected. We are in limbo right now and the trend still is not clear if you look at the 1 year chart of the Dow and S&P. We need more time to play this out. Stay tuned!