Friday, March 05, 2004

If the S&P futures reverse back below 1158 and stay there, I would look for shorts to clamor in on the "false breakout" premise. 10:56:09 AM

A combination of the NYSE and Nasdaq TICK just hit +2264.  This is the biggest surge since 7/2/03 and 3/1/02, both of which kicked off further gains in the NDX over the next week.  Usually, these high TICK mark some kind of blow-off move, but when they are this extreme it can mean something else. 10:43:28 AM

Since the jobs report disappointed by more than 20,000 jobs, recent history would hint that we have around a 60% - 80% chance of being below yesterday's close for the next few days.  However, after 20 days, such a disspointment actually pointed to a higher market nearly 70% of the time.  Short-term pain, longer-term gain, though of course there's no telling if this time around traders will interpret the numbers the same way as they have recently. 9:39:13 AM