OOUCH!

Well, that sure did not take long!  Stopped out of all trades except the QLD.  Gap openings are always the unknown when dealing with stop loss orders.  It seems the last 3 series of trades have seen stops triggered on the open, with prices received lower than the stop price.  I guess nothing is perfect.

With the weakness this morning, it is possible that the Momentum Changes indicators may flip to the Sell side.  Just as the 4/20 Buy signal was a surprise, so this would be a surprise also as there has been little evidence of a change until Tuesday, and even then, the signals had merely moved to neutral.

The weakness is across all asset classes except the Bonds, which continue to perform well, especially the intermediate U.S. Treasuries.  Check out the TLT

Click to Enlarge

Is this THE TOP? That remains to be seen, especially since it seems a little early based on several timing tools.  The Commodities are getting hit, with Oil down to 105.39 and Brent down to 116.66.  The soft commodities are down across the board, with only the meats higher in the commodity complex.  Gold is off again today at 1510 and off 70 points from its high, while Silver continues its correction, trading at 37.67.  ( I hope all those Silver Bulls didn't forget to sell...... big gains mean nothing if you can't take them)

The Euro is selling off as the ECB has stopped talking about a June rate increase, and in fact have begun to soften their hard line position.  It does not look like raising rates will be helpful, now that Germany has taken a serious hit to its GDP growth, coming in negative for April after printing a 4% gain in March.  The Yen continues to strengthen, trading below 80, while the Dollar has caught a bid, trading up an unbelievable 1% at 73.79.  As everyone who follows these markets knows, Mr Market will have a hard time advancing if the Dollar decides it wants to trade higher.

The big news this morning is the surge in new jobless claims, printing 474,000 on expectations of 410,000.  This print is setting up a major surprise for tomorrow's NFP report, which is increasingly looking like it will not be a positive report for the economy.

If there is any change in the Momentum Changes indicators that is sufficient to flip back to a Sell signal, I will post it before 3:30pm, to give you time to make any switch that you would want to make.  It may be time to bone up on the names of some of those short-equivalent ETF's.

Best To Your Trading!

Bill