Egyptians have won, so it seems. UPDATE

The news out a few minutes ago was that President Mubarak will shortly announce he will be leaving office as soon as Constitutional changes are made to transfer power to the Vice President. The protesters have won. Egypt indeed may have won. We should all allow the joy of independence to guide our comments. It is the people of Egypt who need to decide what type of government they should have, not anyone else. Freedom is a wonderful thing and a right for all people. We shouldn't allow voices from our far right wing of the Republican Party to allow their fear of what is to come in Egypt to diminish the joy of freedom for these people. Many worry that Egypt will become a religious state under religious laws as their guide. It is not something to fear because this protest was all about jobs and being paid fair wages for the people to survive. If these stories of Mubarak leaving come true later today, I for one will be very happy for all Egyptians. Democracy can be messy, but freedom is a driving force of mankind.

UPDATE: 6:45pm

Well Mubarak disappointed everyone, except himself, because he did not quit his position as head of the Country. Demonstrators vow to b ring many more into the streets tomorrow. It has frustrated not only the protestors but also the US government because Leon Panetta had said he was resigning today. So much for U.S. Intelligence.

Market update June 15th

Lots to talk about today. The Dow has rallied again this morning but so far has not been able to get over the previous high of a few days ago of 10,328 and has made several attempts to climb high and penetrate above R2 resistance level of 10,377. I do not see that happening.

This week is June Options expiration on Friday. To be in the money, they want the S&P 500 to stay in the money above the 1100 level. It has bouncing above and below that for the past 2 days. It is currently at 1103.

Important data coming out tomorrow, Wednesday, on PPI, Core PPI, Industrial Production and Housing Starts. Thursday has Jobless Claims, Consumer Price Index and Core CPI.

The Intraday Dow chart does not reveal much yet but when it does I will post an Update here.

From Europe this morning an interesting bit of information. The Mannheim-based ZEW Center for European Economic research said its index of investor and analyst expectations, which aims to predict developments six months ahead, slumped to 28.7 from 45.8 in May. That compares to economists forecast for a drop to 42. This sounds like a slowdown is coming there and we in the US are expecting "slower growth" in the 3rd and 4th quarters so to me we could go back into the recession.

UPDATE 10:30am PST

As you can see in the chart above, we went higher than the level I commented on earlier today but have not gone over R@ at 10,378 level. Ther eis a "W" pattern as shown above and it is slanted slightly down. So while we are higher right now, we should go below this right leg of the W pattern.

Update 12:15pm

Well, take a look at the "W" pattern I posted above and compare it to the underlined one in red in the previous update. It looks to me that the slant was changed and now there isn't one. No wonder the Dow rallied up. I didn't do any trading during the time so it's not a problem, but could have been if I had.

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!

Market update - Where are we going short term?

It looks to me reading the charts we are still headed lower short term. For the Dow that means going back to 8,000, for the Nasdaq it means 1500 and for the SP500 it means 850. That's about another 8% drop from here. That is the bottom of the range we hit in this Sept./Oct crash. We will bounce off these lower levels but will be testing them. Don't be fooled again when they bounce back up, as we will drop down on the Dow to about 7300 before we can truly say we are at bottom. That is where real capitulation is and I have been saying this for a couple of months now. So on rises sell, and repurchase at the lows of this band. The Dow will stay in this band of 8,000 to 9,700 for a long time or until we go down to the 7,300. If we do that money will come back into the market on much heavier volume than has been attracted back. However, longer term, volume will be a casualty of the market crash and loss of confidence in Banking, Insurance and the Government.

Bill Seidman, the man who was in charge of the Savings and Loan rescue plan back in the late 1980's, early 90's, was asked on CNBC this morning, when he thought this Mortgage crisis will get resolved. He said he hoped maybe by 2010 but there was serious doubt it would be resolved by then. That means we are in for a turbulent time.

Making money in the stock market is only going to come with increased trading in positions for smaller percent gains. You can get 5% gains with this volatility but then you must consider taking your profit. Hedging with Shorts is also something that can help stabilize the large moves. But those too must be traded when gains appear. The days are gone when the average investor hoped for a 8-10% gain in a year. Be happy now with 3-4%. That will be terrific if you don't have the time or skill to trade.