Today was a flashback to the 80’s for me. Back in the day, the Fed would randomly raise or cut rates and announce “money supply” figures midday. Money supply was all the rage back then. The market didn’t know when it was coming and everyone had to move quickly when the announcement came.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but someone decided that it would be a good idea to inform the markets ahead of time for these events. By now we know exactly when the Fed will meet (weeks in advance now) and when earnings are due, with the specificity to the quarter hour of the report.
Today $GOOG blew it all up, as it trusted their ever important earnings report to an old media company named R.R. Donnelly $RRD.
Anyhoo, someone hit a button and it hit the interwebs with greatest of speed. The number sucked and $GOOG dropped a quick 70 bucks while traders were getting pedicures or trying to find a bottom in $AAPL.
$GOOG was halted for an hour or two and the shorts were euphoric, the longs had razor blades.
Technology isn’t working right now, $IBM, $MSFT, were weak, and now $GOOG put in a big miss. $AAPL continues to be rudderless, as it tries to carve out a bottom between here and maybe 600-620.
We are all guilty of trying to pick off a bottom on occasion and catch the proverbial knife, but why play that game, when you can just play what is working.
While we are all eating our tuna sandwiches in front of our screens, lest we not forget that Bernanke is buying all kinds of crap on a weekly basis. The dollar has no where to go but down, so materials ($XLB), coal ($KOL), energy ($XLE) and metals and mining ($XME) are working to the upside. The financials $XLF for the most part are looking great and most of the “big” bank names like, $GS, $MS, $JPM, $BAC, $WFC and $C have reported and are behind us, which makes trading them much less stressful going forward.
While we lament over $AAPL and technology in general , stocks like $JOY, $ANR, $WLT, $ACI and $CLF have been ripping. There are many more.
Don’t fight the weight of tech right now, they will rip again, they always do, but not here.