Monday Morning Musings

The market is trading lower this morning, after the S&P 500 Index ran into resistance at the 1150 area, which is the level of its previous highs back in January.

The Nasdaq is also lower, led down by Apple (AAPL), which looks to just be profit taking, and Google (GOOG), which is down by -3.3% after news came out that the search engine giant is no longer censoring its search results in China. This could cause them to get booted from the country. That would benefit Chinese-search company Baidu (BIDU), and that stock is spiking +7.0% on the news.

Amid sector ETFs, consumer staples (XLP) are leading (+0.42%) after Pepsi (PEP) said that it will boost its dividend by 7%. Energy stocks (XLE) are taking it on the chin so far (-1.80%).

Asian markets were mostly lower overnight, led by China (-1.2%) amid continued concerns that the country's central bank will further tighten monetary policy.

The dollar is higher today, which is pushing oil prices below $80, while gold is hanging in there near the $1105 level.

The 10-year yield is higher at 3.72%, and the VIX is spiking a little, up +5.8% to 18.60.

Trading comment: The market is up a lot over the last couple of weeks. In our aggressive accounts, we are raising a little cash to take advantage of a potential pullback. But in our balanced accounts we are pretty much just sitting tight with the cash we already have, and will look to add more to our favorite names on said pullback.

I haven't finished my latest sentiment roundup, but for the most part the sentiment indicators have started to move off of their previous bearish levels, but still have room to run before they start flashing warning signs of becoming overly bullish and complacent.

long AAPL, GOOG