– Stock Market Companion – Current Holdings –

Nr.	Co.	Ticker	Action	Entry Date	Current Gain (Loss)
1	Gentiva Health	GTIV	Holding	11/15/2011	+4%

 

– 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.)

(AS of 15:00 EST on Wednesday, December 7, 2011)

Market	Price (Today’s Close)	Unit of Measure	Today’s Direction
SP-500	1,255.19	Index	UP = +20.84 points
DOW-30	12,184.26	Index	UP = +186.56 points
NASDAQ	2,646.85	Index	UP = +50.47 points

 

– Market Trends –

 

Trend	SP-500	DJ-30	NASDAQ
Short Term	Flat/UP	Flat/UP	Flat/UP
Intermediate	Flat	Flat	Flat
Long Term	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) –

 

SMC SP-500 ETF Daily Chart

 

 

Please click on the chart to view it in a larger size.

 

 

 

– Today’s Highlights –

Please click on today’s SMC S&P 500 ETF “SPY” Chart and you will see that the $126.60 area remains a point of contention.  The broader market has not been able to penetrate this resistance line of $126.60 and stay above it    Today’s good news from Europe – in terms of real progress made to tie the European Monetary Union tighter together fiscally – brought enthusiasm to the markets, which was enough to overcome yesterday’s weakness.

In terms of technical price action and the SPY, here’s what we like –  A complete reversal of yesterday’s price weakness.

Here’s what we don’t like in terms of technical price action – Low volume participation today, despite what would be called good news coming from Europe.

Undoubtedly, there were many who initiated short positions based on yesterday’s classic break south in price on good volume.  Many short sellers would be looking for a -50% retracement of the recent recovery rally from the SPY lows on 11/25 at $116.20 to the Wednesday 12/7 high of $127.26, which would represent a downside target of approx. $121.73.  That would also conveniently “close” the gap up from 11/30 and give more conservative market participants an attractive entry point for longer term, long side (bullish) positions.  Today’s positive actions in the markets foils that thinking for the shorts rather suddenly and has caused some to lose money today as they scramble to cover whatever they initiated yesterday.

The big news driving today’s approx. +200 point move is the significant negotiations taking place in Europe involving the future of the monetary union there and the realization that immediate steps have to be made to give the monetary union more authority to deal with big spending countries who do not reign in their expenditures.  Here are the significant points –

• Britain said “No” and didn’t sign-on to the agreement.  Click here for details (Washington-Post)
• The European Stability Fund will be introduced a year early – by 2012.
• The European Central Bank is providing liquidity to “un-freeze” the credit markets there.
• Private sector lendors (read : “Banks”) will not automatically see losses on bonds that they purchased from sovereign European nations (Politics vs. real accountability.  Real accountability lost.)

Click here for more details from the New York Times about the European negotiations.

At this point, we give British Prime Minister Mr. Cameron big kudos for not being pushed into signing the agreement.  He is his own man and has fought hard to get British deficit spending under control.  Why should he give up that hard earned ground simply to accommodate his loose spending neighbors across the English Channel?

Switzerland is another country that has done quite well – not participating in the European Union.

– Story-Stock Investing –

Here are two stocks that have very favorable technical price patterns – Boeing (BA $71.93)  and Nike (NKE $97.68)

Additionally, today we read that the National Labor Relations Board has ended its fight against Boeing for opening up a non-union plant in South Carolina.  We also would like to point out that Boeing has reached an agreement this week for the next four years with its machinists union.  That’s good news. Click here to read more.

Please click on each of these separate charts to open them into a separate browser tab and read our comments.

 

– Benchmarks “At a Glance” –

 

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