Tough To Rally In The Face of Oil

Stocks just could not gain any traction today as oil continued its endless ascent, and nearly hit $120. Even energy stocks took a breather, and you would think that with $120 oil, the drilling stocks would be screaming.

Given that last week was such a huge up week for the market, today's selloff really wasn't all that bad. The put/call ratios were low this morning, so I knew we might have a day like this. By the end of the day, the put/call climbed back to 1.06, so there is still anxiety.

Short-interest on the NYSE came out and showed another uptick as of mid-April. Short interest rose +0.3% on the NYSE to a record 15.63 billion shares. This is a lingering sign of the negativity bubble, as well as the huge number of alternative and long/short funds that have been minted in the last several years. This trend looks like it is getting long in the tooth from my perch.

Tomorrow we will get earnings reports from Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN), which should have a big impact on how the Nasdaq trades for the rest of the week.

long AAPL