Hopes for a good report on consumer confidence today is helping stock futures this morning. Any signs of higher confidence, which turn into higher spending, will be supportive to the markets.
It's not that the earnings we've seen so far have been bad, ... it's that you have companies like Pfizer saying they've lost visibility for 2006 and 2007 and maybe beyond that.
I think in the first quarter we'll fall back into the 1210 to 1246 range on the S&P 500.
Intel is going to have to have a very, very good report, or we could see more selling in that sector.
It's interesting to see gold prices so high, it is certainly something traders will be paying some attention to.
This is a very difficult market to figure out. I think you have a lot of buying under the surface, but professional traders are hedging themselves and that's causing this lack of volatility.
The market looks good here on a technical basis, but you're also starting to approach some overbought areas, which could send us lower.
The market's been getting positive news from GM, oil and semiconductors. But we have the quadruple witching to contend with, which could lead to a lot of volatility, so even though we're up now, we could open anywhere.
One of the recent themes has been the falling dollar, higher materials and commodities. If that is reversing, you could see a rotation out of materials and commodities. At the same time, oils are getting hit by falling crude prices.
It's going to be a really busy day. All of this means you're probably going to see a lot of volatility.
