Thursday, September 24, 2009

Evening Briefing for September 24th

* MARKET THEMES FROM THURSDAY: We opened the day in a multiday trading range, but broke to the downside on significant volume following a weak housing report. There was significant strengthening in the U.S. dollar, which helped push commodities and Treasury yields significantly lower. New 20-day lows expanded to 365, with only 584 20-day highs; my Demand/Supply measure was heavily skewed toward Supply, meaning that a large number of stocks closed below the volatility envelopes surrounding their short-term moving averages. That often leads to follow through weakness on a short-term basis, followed by reversal. As usual, I will be tracking the indicators each morning before the market open via Twitter (follow here) to gauge whether we are seeing expanded weakness or a drying up of selling.

* OVERSEAS/OVERNIGHT NUMBERS: 1:45 AM CT - France, GDP; 3 AM CT - EU, money supply; Italy, retail sales. Earnings reports due out on Friday can be found here.

* WORTH READING:

-- As households save, government goes deeper into debt;

-- Luxury hotels face potential default;

-- The dangers of being rewarded for doing the wrong things;

-- Reflections on whether this is a sucker's rally in stocks;

-- A look at the stock/dollar correlated trade.
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