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InvestmentHouse Weekend Market Summary

http://www.investmenthouse.com/weekendmarketsummary.htm

- Choppy go nowhere expiration but indices hold the week's gains.
- Frogs mating in March. Things just don't seem right economically.
- Industrial production flat, missing expectations, but January revisions make it a wash.
- Capacity revised to a 4 year high in January, but declines for the first time in a year in February.
- Michigan Sentiment shows the impact of gasoline prices, misses its mark.
- Fuel demand falls to a 3 year low and other gasoline related facts.
- February CPI hits a 10 month high, AKS raises its steel prices.
- Inflation hits the lower incomes the hardest, so where are the protestors regarding administration policies that create inflation, produce the worst recovery since the 1930's, and impacts the '99%' the hardest?
- UK drops the 50% '1% rich' tax, bowing to history and basic economics.
- Tax Revenues down in the 2012 'continuing expansion'.
- Expiration week brought some good profits. A pullback and we can be in position to make some more.
- The dilemma: will new money (bond money) put a floor under any pullback or will slowing economic data impact the market? Has to change the character to buy into the latter.

Lots of volume, no movement, market holding its gains.

It was difficult to figure out what I would talk about this weekend. We spoke about it in the office quite a bit. Most of the activity on Friday had to do with economic news, and there was a lot there to discuss. Despite the good spin that people continue trying to put on some of these numbers, they simply are not that great. They are not that bad, but people tend to think that relatively pathetic data looks good because we have been in such a horrid recession for so long. For instance, look at sentiment levels and expectations about the present and the future. As one person noted today, we have not seen such exuberance since 1987. But it also matters where you have been. I am sure when we came out of the Great Depression and started having economic activity that was not terrible for a change, people got pretty exuberant. Our expectations are lowered over time the worse things are.

You may remember the old joke, "The beatings will continue until moral improves." It is not quite the same thing, but you get the idea. The situation is not ideal, but it is not as bad as it was. We are told by the Fed and the administration that it could be worse, so we should just do the best we can. Keep that old stiff upper lip, as the British would say. Speaking of the British, they decide to drop that 50% rich tax that was actually producing less in tax revenue. It seems that someone picked up a history book or an Economics 101 textbook. They realize if they raise the incremental rates too high, they actually produce less tax revenue. Yes, they figured it out by doing a case study themselves. If only we would listen over here.

There was not much action on the day. There were other days this week where the market chopped around and did not move anywhere, notably on Wednesday after that big Tuesday move. Remember the headlines from Wednesday about investors being confused and not understanding the market because it is up one day and then goes nowhere the next. As I pointed out at the time, there was not much reason for confusion about that. It is just the way markets work.

Friday was the same sort of thing, but it was also expiration week and expiration Friday. We got some big volume, just not any big stock moves. They had already given us two good days on the week. They just chopped around to end the week near the flatline at least for the session. Overall stocks posted nice gains for the week, continuing the rally as apparently some bond money is moving into stocks. I will talk about that later with respect to fund flows because it is rather strange. But I digress for now.

SP500, +0.11%; NASDAQ, -0.04%; Dow, -0.15%; SP600, -0.33%; SOX, +0.1%

Big moves, indeed. I jest. The only big moves were on volume, and that was strictly due to expiration. No big change in trading volumes.

OTHER MARKETS

The other markets somewhat continued the themes of the week.

Dollar. 1.3168 versus 1.3085. The dollar advanced nicely and then sold off on Thursday and Friday. It had a good move against the yen and a good move against the euro, but there was no reason to build in more gains, apparently on the supposed economic data. Maybe currency traders felt that the gains in the economic data where not as strong as the headlines indicated, and thus the dollar backed off. Kind of unfortunate because it was reaching the December and January highs, and we would have liked to see it break through. It was not going to do it, and it faded back.

You want to see the dollar moving in sync with the economy. It is struggling to break through a very important peak from January. If we look back, that is a level it struggled at in late 2010 and early 2011. It was an important bottom in the summer of 2010. The dollar is still well off of its high. It is trying to recover, and it should do that as the economy recovers. If it breaks over this January peak, that will be an important move.

Bonds. 2.29% versus 2.28% 10 year U.S. Treasury. Bonds had one of their worst weeks in a long time. On Friday was there a modest relief bounce. Friday other yields improved, and that helped bounce the overall bond picture. But on the week, bonds broke out of their triangle pattern. This should be expected. If the economy is improving, bonds are less needed as a safe haven. Investors are more risk tolerant and would put more money into equities. That appears to be what is happening, but I will talk more about that later.

Gold. 1,656.10, -3.30. Gold had a tough week again. It traded sharply lower on Wednesday, dropping over 50 points. It recovered some on Thursday. Friday it lost a little ground, but it closed basically flat. It came back from the low again, and it looks like the level around $1,635 has some stickiness to it. It is trying to bounce here, but it has a pretty tough road to hoe. You can make out an ABCD pattern. You would to want see it make the stick and bounce at this point. We will find out if it does or not. A lot of technicians are saying gold is bearish. It does have a little head and shoulders pattern because it is not the cleanest ABCD. A lot of people forget about or do not understand the ABCD pattern, so they get blindsided by it a bit. We still do here sometimes because you can get so in the mode of downside that perhaps you do not think that this stock is just doing the old shakeout. In any event, we will see if that is the case for gold or not. It is set up to do it, and we will see if it makes the move.

Oil. 107.03, +1.84. Oil was up on the session. It is bouncing off of its pennant or flag test of the breakout from that November to February trading range. Interestingly enough, Brent Crude accelerated on the session. Unfortunately, it is the one that we base our gasoline prices off of. It closed at $126, blasting higher 3 points in the afternoon session.

The stories that we were able to dig up said that it was related to a belief that Israel may attack Iran at any time. There are so many sites that have to be figured into the equation, and Israel cannot afford to let Iran get too far along in other words, to get past the Israelis' technology to take out the sites. If it goes too late, only the U.S. could have the capability to do it. We do not give that capability out; we do not sell it even to our allies. That was one reason Brent accelerated. It was also ahead of a weekend. Everyone is always a bit worried over the weekend about geopolitical events. That is when things can happen, and then the markets are closed and you cannot do anything about it. So they try to get themselves square. Thus the rally in Brent. It dragged WTI higher with it.

TECHNICAL SUMMARY

The internals do not mean a lot with respect to Friday's action due to expiration.

Volume. NASDAQ +21%, 2B; NYSE +60%, 1.21B. That is far, far outpacing any volume we have seen of late, but a big spike in volume does not mean a thing because of expiration.

Breadth. NASDAQ -1.1:1; NYSE, -1.2:1.

New highs/New lows are not slowing anything special. The market is not at extremes on this rally. It is not showing anything that would suggest that the rally is about to turn over. After all, as I noted before, the market broke through its prior highs. It did so quite easily as new money appears to be coming in. Or something else us pushing it higher, whether it is rotation or not. Stocks are moving higher, and they moved higher pretty broadly to make that breakout. What is going on here? We saw a huge spike on Friday, but throw it out widow. Look at all this volume. Average volume, my friends, is down to around 725-750M shares on the NYSE. It is the same on NASDAQ. It is showing lower overall volume; markedly lower than in, say, 2009. We are talking 20% lower levels of trade.

I have often talked about the retail investor not controlling the market. It is the big money. Without anyone putting money into the funds, then you have a problem with volume because it will be lower. If the funds do not have as much new money coming in to put to work, volumes will be rather static. They will move money around between sectors versus dumping continual new money into the stocks. And if they put new money into it, the volume will go up. Supply and demand, more action. But that is not happening. The retail investor is not powering into the market. There are some stats showing that hedge funds have inflows that were up 2% in January and up 3% in February. But the most recent U.S. equity funds flows were down 1.4B just this past week in March. That does not just mean hedge funds, but mutual funds and those fund managers that run a lot of money as well. So money may be moving in from the bonds but, net, money was flowing out of equity funds in the U.S. It is a conundrum. Is it a 99% versus 1% situation? Are people that jaded with the market? Could be. A lot of people got burned. The Flash Crash was tough, the tsunami was tough. The debacle of last year was tough on investors.

There is also a lack of jobs. Millions upon millions are still not working, and at the current rate of job creation it will take 10 years to get back to where we were. There is not that much disposable income to put into the stock market either. There is a combination of people who got burned and maybe lost what they had, and then you have people who just do not have to money to put it back in and build it up. That is a sad situation because they really need to use the stock market to help beat inflation. They were too late on the bond rally they may have caught the tail end of it and now maybe they are shifting over to the equities just in time to catch the tail end of that. Maybe they are smart. Maybe they are waiting for a pullback. That would be a first, but we will see. I will tell you one thing, the funds are still buying aggressively. If not with new funds, at least they are moving money around the market. Every time there is a dip, they are trying to pick up new shares.

A bit of a long-winded discussion on what is happening in the market, but you can see that it will bleed over into the charts.

THE CHARTS

SP500. SP500 went nowhere on Friday, but it had a good week. It broke out above its prior post bear market high from the summer of 2011, and it put in some good moves. Not every day, but it is solidly moving to the upside.

DJ30. DJ30 broke to a new high as well. It tested its old high and blew right through. A solid week here.

NASDAQ. NASDAQ was the same story. Nice moves. Not as impressive, but AAPL is up near $600, and it is bumping its head a bit. That is most of the NASDAQ right now. If AAPL tests, the NASDAQ will test back to its breakout. But it nonetheless broke out. It will be testing from a position of strength versus trying to break on through to the other side (apologies to the Doors)

SP600. The small caps pattern is the most interesting. They have yet to clearly break through the prior post bear market high not only from the summer of 2011, but from February of 2012. They have tried it, but they could not do it and sold off. They are trying again, but have been unable to do it. It looks like they will have the mojo to get it taken care of, but I do not know, however, if they can pull the breakout here. And this is very important. It ties into the economic data.

If the economic data is rolling over and there are some indications that it is starting to have problems then we will see it in the small caps. They will fail in their breakout attempt. That is if we will have economic problems. That will be one of your leading indicators. If the small caps have trouble, then we could have trouble elsewhere. This time if the small caps are struggling (as they were before everything burned up in the financial crisis and the first ever part of the recovery and the export economy), then there is no big China consumption, Brazilian consumption, or Indian consumption. Everyone is struggling. Europe is obviously struggling. So if the small caps go down, where will we find our growth? That is the worrisome aspect of what the small caps are showing.

SOX. The SOX is back up to its February peak. It has had a good two weeks, but it has yet to break through. Another growth area, another important area for the market. Will the semiconductors be able to break through, or will they be rebuffed once again? They are at an important level. There is a lot of congestion from early 2011, and they still have yet to clear their February 2012 peak. Another important test. Small caps and semiconductors are very important to watch moving forward.

LEADERSHIP

Financial. I will not go into a lot of leadership charts tonight. There is no real reason to because I discussed it a lot during the week. The main point to understand is that the financial stocks had a good week. They broke back to the upside and started with their leadership that helped break SP500 out to the upside. Very important move. Semiconductors enjoyed something of a recovery. And since they broke their downside channels, they helped provide a move to the upside. The question is, looking at that SOX chart, will they continue that?

Industrial. I would be remiss if I did not address the industrials that recovered nicely last week. CAT is the poster child for these. It is the bellwether and the one you always look at. It did break back up through a gap point. A very important move. Now it is right at the late January peak, and that is above the February peak. Once again a big test for CAT. Will it continue higher or will it roll over? MACD made a lower high. It is still struggling. Very interesting, indeed. It would be more interesting if MACD had dropped sharply lower on this test versus the levels from back in late December of 2011. We will see what happens there. GE looks good. It is powering to the upside. It broke out and is moving well.

Technology. Techs were doing fine, but some of the big names like AAPL are struggling. It does not look like it will roll over. We have seen this before. We saw it in mid February, we saw it in early March, and it did not die. But the move has been amazing. It is somewhat parabolic if you look back in time. It has really accelerated its moves over the past three months. Leaders tend to do that. A blowoff? Who knows? I will say that it has gapped upside, and it is poised to gap to the downside. That would be an important move indeed.

Energy. Those are the big names. There are a lot of smaller names that look good, particularly in energy. We are seeing small names and large cap names looking solid. SN is one we like a lot. It is pretty new, and it has a great set up. OII was performing quite well. DVN is an independent oil and gas company. A nice break to the upside. There are others out there as well. XEC looks good to make a break. Energy is showing growth or what looks to be growth. It has great patterns, and it should at these prices. Perhaps we will get some leadership from energy stocks. They are not the only ones; they are all over the market. You will see these stocks that are setting up nice patterns and making upside breaks. We saw them all week long.

They vary from health care and stocks such as CYH. A nice little test, breaking to the upside. And you have the clean energy types as well. CDTI is setting up a great pattern and trying to make a move. GSM had a great break to the upside. There are fewer name brands more of the household brands that have set up these patterns and are ready to break to the upside. Indeed, they are starting to make that break and helping lead the market. Stocks such as GSM. It is hardly extended and overpriced. In fact, it is showing the same kind of rounded bottom and the higher lows and higher MACDs setting up. A lot of the leaders showed us that way back when they started this rally out of the eurozone burning from last year.

THE ECONOMY

Frogs mating in March. Something is not right.

Economic Data is not quite right, but nothing you can point to shows a rollover.

Warmer weather hurt holiday sales but then helped early 2012 apparel sales.

Likely helped improve the jobs picture. Lagging indicator advancing on the improved second half 2011 economic data AND aided by warm weather requiring some more bodies at Home Depot, Lowe's, apparel stores.

PROBLEM: We are seeing a decline in the early 2012 data similar to 2011.
Not as dramatic but there are indications the data is slowing, not to mention internal inconsistencies.

Saw this in other data on the week:
Jobless claims: the leading employment indicator, and it stopped improving the past three weeks. Not rolling over, but planning out.
Employment report: Temporary workers even at this stage of 'recovery,' 10 years to recover jobs at this rate, missing/disappearing workers from the pool.
PPI: 5 months of increasing price trends
Regional Manufacturing: Massive spike in prices paid, new orders, shipments, unfilled orders plunging. Inventories jumping (0.9 versus -12.9, Philly).
Retail sales: Core sales 0.5% February versus 1.0% January. Two-thirds of the increase in retail sales due to gasoline price spikes and auto channel stuffing.

Saw it on Friday again.

CPI, February (8:30): 0.4% actual versus 0.4% expected, 0.2% prior
Year/Year: 2.9% versus 2.9% January.

Core CPI, February (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
Year/Year: 2.2% versus 2.3% January.

Food prices flat for February
Gasoline prices +6%

Bonds: Bounced some on the news, supposedly because CPI gives the Fed more room for more stimulus.

Industrial Production, February (9:15): 0.0% actual versus 0.5% expected, 0.4% prior (revised from 0.0%)
Big miss, but January revision made it a wash.
Point: can the data be trusted? How can the misses be so large?

Capacity Utilization, February (9:15): 78.7% actual versus 78.8% expected, 78.8% prior (revised from 78.5%)
A mixed bag: 78.8% from January (revised) was the highest reading in 4 years. On the other hand, the February reading was the first decline since April 2011. Of course it was up from the previous, unrevised reading . . .
Sum: Utilization is not bad but not at a level requiring any kind of capital investment to expand capacity. Definitely no bottlenecks.

Michigan Sentiment, March (9:55): 74.3 actual versus 75.8 expected, 75.3 prior
Shows the influence of gasoline prices on consumers.
Expectations six months out declined.
Inflation expectations rose to 4.0% from 3.3%.
More respondents saying they are going to cut down on eating out and generally pulling back. That is NOT the sign of a growing positive wave in the economy.
Contra: Retail stock charts continue their nice uptrends and indeed some look ready to break higher once more.

Tax Revenues based upon withholding lower year to day 2012 versus same time in 2011. Stronger economic activity?

The numbers ebb and flow, but almost through Q1 in an economic expansion tax receipts are lower.

$8.35B less than 2011 (Daily Treasury Statement, Department of Treasury)
How can a recovery be accelerating when tax revenues are down?

We know that tax revenues rise even as rates are cut because economic expansion generates more jobs and a larger base to tax.

If revenues are down you know 1) there is less economic activity because 2) less incomes and income to tax.

Summary:
Slowing data yes.
Still has not broken any uptrends, however.
Stock market is not showing any major rollover in economic activity.

TO VIEW THE ECONOMY OVERVIEW CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK:
Economy Summary Video

THE MARKET

SENTIMENT INDICATORS

VIX . There is so much talk about the VIX right now and what it means for the market. You cannot turn on a station, swing a dead cat, or throw a rock at your neighbor's dog without hearing something about the complacency in the market, the VIX falling to lows not seen in a year, and that a selloff is imminent. It may be imminent, but the market has deified the last "imminent" point of a selloff which was when the SP500 and the other indices tested their recent highs on a bounce and broke right on through. It threw that pretty much out the window. But now they are saying that it is down near the April of 2011 lows which are also the January of 2011 lows, and the February and December 2010 lows . We did not have a big market selloff as those times, did we? We had some dipping, no doubt, but we did not have major selloffs. The big selloff came in August through October when the eurozone was burning (more or less literally). Volatility shot higher and the market sold off. Now we had the market rallying as volatility declines.

As we have seen many times before, volatility can stay at these low levels for years if the market is rallying. If money is coming into the market, it will trump whatever the volatility is telling us or is purported to be telling us. For instance, if the bond market continues to sell off and the money from the stock market comes into the stock market (as it should if the economy is getting better and bonds become less of a safe haven and people put money in riskier assets), then the stock market should continue higher and the VIX should continue lower. Or it should move laterally for however long the market wants to move.

I know that is unsavory for a lot of people who like to put a lot of emphasis on the VIX. But, looking back to 2003 and to 2007 when things really got ugly and we slid into the financial crisis, the stock market continued to rally for five years while VIX slide lower and lower. The stock market was higher, and the VIX lower and moving laterally. The rally was not doomed until the stock market was hitting highs and then volatility started to move higher. That is something that I always talk about as the most important indicator when it comes to volatility. When a market is selling and volatility spikes to massive levels as we saw in 2008, you will get a rally in stocks at some point after those massive spikes. Not immediately; it takes awhile to work through the system. But when you do, you get a nice rally. That is a great use for volatility.

But in times when the market is rallying and volatility is low, you will get some up and down swings, and you sometimes get a correlation going between volatility and stock prices. They will twist back and forth, kissing each other and going apart. But that correlation does not always happen. The most important aspect of volatility in a revising market is when volatility starts to rise as the market continues to rise after volatility has been flat lining or heading lower. If that is what we see, that is one of the signs of a major correction coming.

Looking back to 2000, you can see the market moving higher and volatility was low, but then it started to jump. In March of 2000 volatility spiked. The market was still moving higher. It went back down because the market continued up, but then it started spike again and the market rolled over. It happened in 2007. It is not happening right now. Volatility is still finding its bottom as the stock market rises.

VIX: 14.47; -0.95
VXN: 16.47; -0.78
VXO: 13.73; -0.86

Put/Call Ratio (CBOE): 0.78; +0.08

This is a reading of the number of bullish investment advisors versus bearish advisors. The reason you look at this is that it gives you an idea of how bullish investors are. If they are too bullish then everyone is in the market and it is heading for a top: if everyone wants to be in the market, then all the money is in and there is no more new cash to drive it higher. On the other side of the spectrum if there are a lot of bears then there is a lot of cash on the sideline, and as the market rallies it drags that cash in as the bears give in. That cash provides the market the fuel to move higher. If bears are low it is the same as a lot of bulls: everyone is in and the market does not have the cash to drive it higher.

Bulls: 43.6% versus 47.9% versus 51.1%. Bullish sentiment is breaking even as stocks hit higher highs. Well, this data does not reflect the week's upside break and that may change things a bit. Nonetheless, advisors are turning pessimistic about the market rally, and that in itself provides the upside fuel. Again, it is not excessive, it is not excessively low either. They are off the 55+ level even near the highs as investors get a bit pensive. Bigger picture that is good for the upside. That was the highest level since April and May of 2011, the peak of the post-bear market high. Now the indices are back at that level and so are the bulls. All the more reason to watch this action at the prior highs. 35% is the threshold measuring bullish versus bearish action. Six weeks the bulls were below bears. A powerful sentiment signal but now dissipating. Highs from April and December (60% readings spanning December through early May 2011). The 5 year high is 62.0. The crossover level at 29% bulls from July 2010 is long gone. 35% is the threshold level suggesting bullishness. To be seriously bearish it needs to get up to the 60% to 65% level.

Bears: 26.6% versus 26.6% versus 25.5%. Holding at the slightly elevated level from the prior week. Bears are a bit more negative but still not at a level suggesting a new surge. Nonetheless stocks continue to break higher. As with bulls, not excessive either way. Solidly lower after spending weeks at 30%ish. Not at a bearish level but they are growing more confident even as the market hits the prior highs and is not blasting on through. For more reference, bearishness hit a 5 year high at 54.4% the last week of October 2008. The move over 50 took bearish sentiment to its highest level since 1995. Extreme negative sentiment. Prior levels for comparison: Bearishness peaked at 37.4% in September 2007. It topped the June 2006 peak (36%) on that run. That June peak eclipsed the March 2006 high (33%) and well above the 2005 highs that spawned new rallies (30% in May 2005, 29.2% in October 2005). That was a huge turn, unlike any seen in recent history.

NASDAQ

Stats: -1.11 points (-0.04%) to close at 3055.26
Volume: 2.009B (+20.73%)

Up Volume: 1.07B (-140M)
Down Volume: 997.5M (+550.86M)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.09 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.97 to 1

New Highs: 148 (+20)
New Lows: 16 (-13)

SP500/NYSE

Stats: +1.57 points (+0.11%) to close at 1404.17
NYSE Volume: 1.215B (+58.41%)

Up Volume: 2.98B (-400M)
Down Volume: 2.01B (+1.168B)

A/D and Hi/Lo: Decliners led 1.18 to 1
Previous Session: Advancers led 1.51 to 1

New Highs: 136 (+6)
New Lows: 8 (-7)

DJ30

Stats: -20.14 points (-0.15%) to close at 13232.62
Volume DJ30: 392M shares Friday (expiration) versus 161M shares Thursday.

MONDAY

We enter next week with a dilemma. If there is any new money coming in (maybe from bonds), will it put a floor under any pullback in the market? Thus far it has done that. Every time there has been what looks to be a selloff, we have had a buy into that that has driven the market higher. Or with the slowing economic data prevail and impact the market and send it lower? The SP600 charts will tell more of that picture for us. It is still unable to break through its prior highs. That is going to be the question. But in order for the latter to work in other words, the breakdown we need a change of character in the market.

As noted, thus far the buyers have supported each dip. It is definitely about buying on the dips. It is basically the big money going it because there are not that many retail investors here. We thought there might be a shot this past week when the large cap indices came up and tested their prior highs. They blew right through them. Now they will be coming back to test from a position of strength. A bit of a pullback will be good for us. We were able to take some nice gain off of the table this week. Very good profits. A pullback, and we will be in position to pick up more of those name brand stocks as well as the house brands we have been talking about buying of late.

While we may be uncomfortable about what the economy will bring and just how serious this economic recovery is, we will have to deal with the fact that the market is not pricing that in. Maybe it is just a liquidity binge that is still pushing the market and the economy to the upside. If that is the case, then that is the case. We will just take what the market gives. We do not think we are smarter than the market. We prepare, set up, and you take some downside at the right times. If it does not work out, then it does not work out. But you keep playing the main push with most of your money. That is what we have been doing.

We will continue to play the upside until the market shows that it is changing its character. Nothing last week showed a change of character. Indeed, a break above the prior highs affirmed the existing upside bias. It will have to show a change of that character in order to dramatically change our position in the market. We may have our misgivings, but those misgivings have been overrun by the market action on every dip.

We will let our continuing positions run and make us money. We will keep looking at the house brands that we were picking up this week because they keep showing great setups. If we get the pullback after expiration (which is often the case; we had a great expiration week), and if we get a pullback for a day or two to start next week, we might be able to pick up some of the name brands at a much better price at a nice little test as they come back and test the break through the prior peaks. We can ride them to make more money as well.

Have an outstanding weekend. It is spring already in a lot of the country since we did not have a winter. Get out there and enjoy it.

Support and Resistance

NASDAQ: Closed at 3055.26
Resistance:
3227 is the April 2000 intraday low
3401 is the May 2000 closing low

Support:
3042 from 5/2000 low
3026 from 10/2000 low
3000 is the February 2012 post-bear market high
The 20 day EMA at 2978
2910 is the recent March 2012 low
2900 is the March 2012 low
2888 is the May 2011 peak and PRIOR post-bear market high
The 50 day EMA at 2889
2879 is the July 2011 peak
2862 is the 2007 peak
2841 is the February 2011 peak
2816 is the early April 2011 peak.
2754 is the October 2011 high
2706 to 2705 is the April 2011 low and the February 2011 and consolidation low (bottom of the trading range) 2723 to 2705 is the range of support at the bottom of the January to May trading range
2686 is the January 2011 closing low
The 200 day SMA at 2682
2676 is the January 2010 low and the December 2011 peak
2645-2650ish from December 2010 consolidation
2643 is the September 2011 high
2612 is the late August 2011 peak
2603 is the March 2011 intraday low (post-Japan low)
2599 is the June 2011 low and NASDAQ
2593 is the November intraday high
2580 is the November 2010 closing high
2555 is the mid-August 2011 peak
2535 is the November island reversal gap point
2441 is the November 2011 low

S&P 500: Closed at 1404.17

Resistance:
1425 from May 2008 closing highs
1433 from August 2007 closing lows
1440 from November 2007 closing lows

Support:
1378 is the February 2012 peak
The 20 day EMA at 1371
1371 is the May 2011 peak, the post-bear market high
1357 is the July 2011 peak
1344 is the February 2011 peak
1340 is the early April 2011 peak
The 50 day EMA at 1340
1332 is the early March 2011 peak
1318.51 is the May 2011 low
1295 to 1294 is the April 2011 low and the February 2011 consolidation low (bottom of the trading range)
1293 is the October 2011 peak
1275 is the January 2010 low, early January 2011 peak
1267 is the December 2011 peak
The 200 day SMA at 1261
1258 is June 2011 intraday low
1255 is the late December 2010 consolidation range
1249 is the March 2011 low (post-Japan)
1235 is the mid-December 2010 consolidation low
1231 is the late August 2011 peak
1227 is the November 2010 peak
1220 is the April 2010 peak
1209 is the mid-August 2011 high
1196 is the November 2010 consolidation peak
1178-1180 is the October 2010/November 2010 consolidation low
1158 is the November 2011 low
1131 - 1127 from August 2010 base peak.
1119 is the early August closing low
1109 is the mid-September 2010 gap up point
1101 is the August 2011 low
1099 from the mid-July interim peak
1075 is the October 2011 intraday low

Dow: Closed at 13,232.62
Resistance:
13,668 from 12-2007 peak
13,692 from 6-2007 peak
14,022 from 7-07 peak

Support:
13,058 from the May 2008 peak on that bounce in the selling
13,056 is the February 2012 high
12,876 is the May high
The 50 day EMA at 12,777
12,754 is the July intraday peak
12,391 is the February 2011 peak
12,284 is the October 2011 peak
12,258 is the December 2011 peak
12,110 from the March 2007 closing low
12,094 is the April 2011 low
The 200 day SMA at 12,037
The June low at 11,897 (closing)
11,734 from 11-98 peak
11,717 is the late August 2011 peak
The August low at 11,702
11,555 is the March low
11,452 is the November 2010 peak
11,178 from November 2010
10,978 is the bottom of the November 2010 consolidation
10,750 from September 2010
10,720 is the August closing low
10,705-710 from January 2010 peak
10,694-700 from August 2010 peak

Economic Calendar

March 12 - Monday
- Treasury Budget, February (14:00): -$231.7B actual versus -$229.0B expected, -$222.5B prior

March 13 - Tuesday
- Retail Sales, February (8:30): 1.1% actual versus 1.0% expected, 0.6% prior (revised from 0.4%)
- Retail Sales ex-auto, February (8:30): 0.9% actual versus 0.6% expected, 1.1% prior (revised from 0.7%)
- Business Inventories, January (10:00): 0.7% actual versus 0.6% expected, 0.6% prior (revised from 0.4%)
- FOMC Rate Decision, March (14:15): 0.25% actual versus 0.25% expected, 0.25% prior

March 14 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 03/10 (7:00): -2.4% actual versus -1.2% prior
- Current Account Balance, Q4 (8:30): -$124.1B actual versus -$113.8B expected, -$110.3B prior
- Export Prices ex-ag., February (8:30): 0.5% actual versus 0.0% prior
- Import Prices ex-oil, February (8:30): -0.1% actual versus 0.1% prior
- Crude Inventories, 03/10 (10:30): 1.750M actual versus 0.832M prior

March 15 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 03/10 (8:30): 351K actual versus 355K expected, 365K prior (revised from 362K)
- Continuing Claims, 03/03 (8:30): 3343K actual versus 3415K expected, 3424K prior (revised from 3416K)
- Empire Manufacturing, March (8:30): 20.2 actual versus 15.0 expected, 19.5 prior
- PPI, February (8:30): 0.4% actual versus 0.5% expected, 0.1% prior
- Core PPI, February (8:30): 0.2% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.4% prior
- Net Long-Term TIC Fl, January (9:00): $101.0B actual versus $19.1B prior (revised from $17.9B)
- Philadelphia Fed, March (10:00): 12.5 actual versus 12.5 expected, 10.2 prior

March 16 - Friday
- CPI, February (8:30): 0.4% actual versus 0.4% expected, 0.2% prior
- Core CPI, February (8:30): 0.1% actual versus 0.2% expected, 0.2% prior
- Industrial Production, February (9:15): 0.0% actual versus 0.5% expected, 0.4% prior (revised from 0.0%)
- Capacity Utilization, February (9:15): 78.7% actual versus 78.8% expected, 78.8% prior (revised from 78.5%)
- Michigan Sentiment, March (9:55): 74.3 actual versus 75.8 expected, 75.3 prior

March 19 - Monday
- NAHB Housing Market Survey, March (10:00): 31 expected, 29 prior

March 20 - Tuesday
- Housing Starts, February (8:30): 705K expected, 699K prior
- Building Permits, February (8:30): 695K expected, 676K prior

March 21 - Wednesday
- MBA Mortgage Index, 03/17 (7:00): -2.4% prior
- Existing Home Sales, February (10:00): 4.61M expected, 4.57M prior
- Crude Inventories, 03/17 (10:30): 1.750M prior

March 22 - Thursday
- Initial Claims, 03/17 (8:30): 355K expected, 351K prior
- Continuing Claims, 03/10 (8:30): 3363K expected, 3343K prior
- FHFA Housing Price I, January (10:00): 0.7% prior
- Leading Indicators, February (10:00): 0.6% expected, 0.4% prior

March 23 - Friday
- New Home Sales, February (10:00): 321K expected, 321K prior