Catching Up With the Blogosphere

* Fading Momentum - According to Decision Point, after Monday's decline, only 45% of NYSE stocks and 43% of S&P 500 issues are trading above their 50-day moving averages. That number has tended to go below 30% during most of the intermediate-term corrections during the recent bull market. Only 26% of S&P 500 financial stocks are trading above their 50-day MA and 32% of health care issues. Energy remains the stronger sector, with 69% of stocks trading above their benchmarks.

* Options Sentiment Elevated, But Not At Bearish Extremes - I see that the equity put/call ratio has been hovering just below 1.0. While that is elevated compared with average levels, it is not at the extremes that we've seen at recent market bottoms such as March, 2007 and June, 2006 when we had multiple readings above 1.0. While on the options topic, check out Adam Warner's perspectives and why he thinks index options are overpriced relative to the options of individual stocks.

* Understanding Sector Rotation - A book overview from the Afraid to Trade blog takes a look at the relationship between sector movements and the business cycle.

* Good Reading - Trader Mike offers updated links, including a review article on gaps; check out the screening post from Charles Kirk, drawing upon the MSN StockScouter. There are some stocks worthy of investigation in the post.

* Most Admired Companies Perform Most Admirably in the Stock Market - Great summary of a study from the CXO Advisory Blog.

* Housing Market, City by City - A nice summary of data from Bespoke Investment Group shows where there's greater strength and weakness. See also their innovative advance-decline line for economic indicators posted to Seeking Alpha.

* Gold as Money - Very educational post from Trotsky and Mish. Excellent quote: "In the end, such price fluctuations in gold are a bit like Warren Buffet's famous remark about the stock market being a 'voting machine in the short term and a weighing machine in the long term'. In the short term, all sorts of considerations can be used to 'explain' movements in the gold price, but in the long term, gold acts as the aforementioned barometer of confidence in central bank issued fiat money."

* Not the Apple of Their Eye - WSJ Online raises questions re: the iPhone.