-Executive Summary-

• The markets moved significantly lower again early today.  Buyers were attracted at the lows of the day – which not only took the rough edge off the markets drop – but in the case of the NASDAQ put in place an Upside Reversal.  The broader market closed flat, but the NASDAQ 100 closed POSITIVE  See below.
• News from Hewlett Packard (Ticker: HPQ) contributed to this morning’s weakness.  Positive news this evening from Dell, Inc. (DELL) should help the market, in the absence of any other market moving news.  See below.
• Stock Market Companion Watchlist stock Amarin Corp. PLC (AMRN) received a strong upgrade today and an approx. +50% target from today’s price.  See below.
• Would you please feel free to give us feedback at support@stockmarketcompanion.com for insights of what you like about our work and where you would like to see improvements.  We are here to serve you.
• Here is a video interview of a father and son using the Stock Market Companion successfully together – as a teaching and investing tool.
  

– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)
1	Cisco Systems,Inc.	CSCO	Holding (Reduced size)	5-10-2011	-7%

If the above “Current Holdings” table is empty it means that we are not holding ANY stocks at this time and that we are therefore 100% in cash.

– Markets “At a Glance” –

(Please scroll down to the end of the report to see your favorite benchmarks – Dollar, Oil, Gold … closing prices and daily direction.)

Market	Price (Today’s Close)	Unit of Measure	Today’s Direction
SP-500	1,328.98	Index	Flat = -.49 points
DOW-30	12,479.58	Index	Down = -68.79 points
NASDAQ	2,783.21	Index	Flat =+0.90 points
NASDAQ 100	2,343.51	Index	UP = +5.66 points

– Market Trends –

Trend	SP-500	DJ-30	NASDAQ	NASDAQ 100
Short Term	Down	Down	Down	Down
Intermediate	UP	UP	UP	UP
Long Term	Lateral	Lateral	Lateral	Lateral

*Summary of terms from Trader Vic II-Principles of Professional Speculation (pg. 140-141)
*_________* Represents a change in trend rating.

– Market Perspectives –

For your added perspective, we’ve included this chart of the broader market (Successful stock investors develop and start with a minds-eye view of the broader market and keep it clear) –

1. SMC SP-500 ETF Daily Chart (Click to open helpful chart in a separate browser window).

– Today’s Highlights –

Early today, the market fell further as investors again chose to lighten-up on risk, and head to near cash instruments like U.S. Treasuries.

Last night’s breaking report concerning a memo from Hewlett Packard’s (Ticker: HPQ) new CEO Mr. Apotheker to his key managers – urging them to be ready for challenging times ahead and to restrict hiring and lower expenses – added momentum to this morning’s sell-off as Hewlett Packard shares and the DOW (DJ-30) fell hard.  The U.S. dollar pressed higher, which also put further pressure on the market.  As of late, the market has been selling-off on each surge in the U.S. dollar.  The dollar however reached its momentary zenith this early afternoon and the equities market attracted some early bargain hunters.

Sunshine however has briefly broken through the storm clouds surrounding the market.  After the close today, Dell Inc. (Ticker: DELL) reported EXCELLENT earnings for last quarter and strong guidance for next quarter and the stock has moved higher in after hours trading to approx. $16.71, just below its highs reached a few days ago.  In all probability, this good report from Dell should put a “bid” under the market tomorrow morning, taking more of the recent selling pressure off the markets.  It is always very interesting to see how two players in the same industry – in this case, Hewlett Packard and Dell – can be achieving very different results.  Don’t forget too that Apple, Inc. is still hitting on all cylinders.

In the case of Hewlett Packard, the company has simply been poorly served by upper management and the board of directors.  Former HPQ CEO Carly Fiorina and those who have followed have simply not been able to deliver, and the board of directors at HPQ have shown their lack of judgment on at least two glaring occasions – a spying scandal related to discovering the source of media leaks (2006) and the CEO Michael Hurd resignation with sizeable benefits.

Dell’s stock is UP approx. +22% in 2011 and HPQ’s stock is DOWN approx. -14% for the year and -25% from its recent highs.  Apple Inc is UP approx. +4% for the year.

In the background, we need to remain vigilant of the face-off taking place between Republicans wanting more (and absolutely necessary) budget reforms and significant spending cuts before lifting the debt ceiling and Democrats + U.S. Treasury.  According to this late article tonight, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Geithner said that the U.S. reached the debt ceiling yesterday and urged U.S. Congress to work things out …

– Story-Stock Investing –

When the market reversed lower on the day of Osama bin Laden’s last chapter, we knew that in all probability that the market would begin to weaken and we said so that day.  On that same day, we initiated our short in silver, while keeping our long holdings in Dell, Ford, Cisco, and Nexxus Lighting.  In retrospect, we wish we had immediately closed out all of our long holdings and shorted the market further.  Fortunately our short in Silver was well timed.

We used the strong bounce in the market on that Friday to exit our holdings, only to be lured into Amarin Corp. and Cisco one more time on Tuesday last week with exploratory size holdings.   Why were we lured back in, even with modest funds?  The answer is that the market has been very resilient. Consider –

1. When the Arab world was beginning to come apart on January 19th with a stand-off in Egypt – we exited the market.  But the market continued higher for an additional month.  (We were however glad to be OUT of Intel at break-even at the time as the stock dropped approx. -12%).
2. When the earthquake, tsunami, AND nuclear meltdown hit Japan, on March 10th – the market headed south, but recovered 4 days later and marched higher.
3. For over a year, cash strong corporations have been acquiring other companies at significant premiums to market values.  Just last week, Microsoft purchased Skype at 32x Skype’s gross operating income.

– Stock Market Companion – Performance –

Please click on this chart to see the Stock Market Companion 15Minute Market Update stock performance versus the SP-500.  It will open in a separate browser window.
* Gains (losses) do not include brokerage fees.   Our returns are very strong … BUT …  WE have to remind everyone just like all other financial sites in America – Past Performance is No Guarantee of Future Returns.  Unlike others however, our objective is to teach you to be able to make these types of strong returns On Your Own.

All of the investments – stocks, entries, and exits are listed on our Stock Market Companion Watchlist at the bottom of the spreadsheet, in the section labelled Former Holdings.

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

US Dollar	1.4246 USD = 1 Euro	USD / EUR	Dollar = Flat
Gold	$1,487.60	Ounce	Gold = Lower
Oil	$97.70	Barrel (West Texas Crude)	Oil = Flat
30 Yr. Fixed Mortgage	4.69%	Percent	Flat
10 Yr. Bond Yield	3.121	Percent	Lower
1 Yr. CD	1.16	Percent	Flat

Data Source : Financial Visualizations Inc.

Please help us by sending your valuable feedback to – Support@stockmarketcompanion.com

Signing-Off for Today,

Your -Stock Market Companion

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