Monday Morning Musings

The market is roughly flat in early trading, with the Nazz down slightly due to heaviness in AAPL, GOOG, and a few others. The economic and corporate newsflow is relatively light today, and the markets come into the day's session at overbought levels. The chart below shows that the Nazz is actually more overbought than it has been in many months. The dollar is roughly flat, and precious metals are moving higher. Gold prices are up near $1437, while silver prices are 2% higher above $38.50. Oil prices are also hovering near 2-year highs at $108. Asian markets were mostly higher overnight, with China closed for a holiday. But China's service PMI came in at 60.2, which is up sharply from February's 44.1 reading, so that should be a boost. The 10-year yield is lower to 3.41%; and the VIX is 1.5% higher to 17.67. Trading comment: We continue to see more breakouts amongst leading growth stocks. But the old generals like AAPL and GOOG continue to lag. I showed the chart of the oscillator above, which shows how overbought the market is currently. As such, I would expect some backing and filling as we head into earnings season next week. I expect earnings to be solid again, and would go back and look for those stocks (I will try to highlight some) which beat estimates handily last quarter and reacted well. They could have a repeat performance. long AAPL, GOOG