Tuesday, May 01, 2007
The Worst Month Over
Here at Easy Options we hated April. If you were long April you would have loved it.
For the month of April, the Dow tacked on 5.74 percent; the SPX 4.33 percent and the Naz 4.27 percent. This is the largest monthly gain for the Dow since December 2003.
The SPX fell yesterday 11.70 points to 1,482.37. Profit taking after the stellar rallies in April is hardly surprising.
In the early going, stocks benefited from benign inflation data. The core PCE, a favorite measure of inflation by the Fed, was flat, bringing the year on year rate down to 2.1 percent form 2.4 percent in February. At the same time, wages and salaries rose 0.7 percent. However, manufacturing activity was weak in the Chicago area with the Chicago PMI falling to 52.9 percent in April from 61.7 percent in March.
Economic news will be a key factor for the rest of the week with the ISM Index due out today and the employment situation report due out on Friday. Both reports are expected to show weak readings with the ISM expected to stay near 51 percent and the employment report expected to show nonfarm payroll gains of just 100,000.
At this time I still I can't see any point in placing a play this week. The week after we have a fed meeting so my thinking at this time is to wait for the fed.
Until next time.
For the month of April, the Dow tacked on 5.74 percent; the SPX 4.33 percent and the Naz 4.27 percent. This is the largest monthly gain for the Dow since December 2003.
The SPX fell yesterday 11.70 points to 1,482.37. Profit taking after the stellar rallies in April is hardly surprising.
In the early going, stocks benefited from benign inflation data. The core PCE, a favorite measure of inflation by the Fed, was flat, bringing the year on year rate down to 2.1 percent form 2.4 percent in February. At the same time, wages and salaries rose 0.7 percent. However, manufacturing activity was weak in the Chicago area with the Chicago PMI falling to 52.9 percent in April from 61.7 percent in March.
Economic news will be a key factor for the rest of the week with the ISM Index due out today and the employment situation report due out on Friday. Both reports are expected to show weak readings with the ISM expected to stay near 51 percent and the employment report expected to show nonfarm payroll gains of just 100,000.
At this time I still I can't see any point in placing a play this week. The week after we have a fed meeting so my thinking at this time is to wait for the fed.
Until next time.
# posted by Paul @ 10:05 AM 
