Monday Morning Musings

The market is opening under more selling pressure, continuing what we saw on Friday. Retailers and financials are bucking the weakness so far. REITs are down again, but given the run this group has had, a pullback there was well overdue.

Oil is also trading lower, falling below $59. Interest rates are pretty stable, with the 10-year yield at 4.78%. The volatility indexes are rising again, reflective of some building in fear.

This week is also options expiration week, so we might see some increased volatility associated with that event. The SPX is only -1.25% off its recent high, so a little pullback doesn't exactly reverse the uptrend.

A little pickup in bearish sentiment and a move to work off the overbought condition in the market would be a longer-term positive, and help put the market in position to continue that stair-step higher action that has been in place for months.

In other news and notes:

• Asian, European markets dip overnight
• Crude oil trading lower in early trade, now 58.80 -1.09
• Costco mentioned positively in Barron's
• Research In Motion to introduce newest BlackBerry
• LCAV beats by $0.09; guides FY07 EPS above consensus
• ILMN to repurchase approx $200 mln in common stock
• Apple upgraded to Buy from Hold at Citigroup-tgt $105
• FS confirms it will be taken private at US$82.00 per share
• Hansen announces distribution deal with PepsiCo Canada
• Garmin downgraded to Hold from Buy at Needham
• Apple announces that Lionsgate Movies now on iTunes
• GME declares 2-for-1 stock split; bond buyback increased by $150 mln

long AAPL