INSIGHTS
JUN
10
WEEK AHEAD...
Increasing volatility over the last two weeks would generally be a sign of unease in investor’s minds. Turning on dime whenever positive or negative comments come out about the economy and the future. You can say that that has been the truth pretty much what with Fed commentary about the length of QE3, the prospect of increasing employment, and what many analyst believe to be the bottom of the European Unions recession. All intriguing trading situations that continue to give a solid foundation for the market and the economy as a whole.

So why does the market sell off 200 pts. when some mediocre, short term data point disappoints us? Simple, we are in the skittish phase of what will be a very long-term bull market.

This period will continue to have what appear like an “Aha” moments almost daily. Investors are jumping in because they don’t want to miss any more of this rally. Investors will be getting out, taking profits. Investors are sitting on the sidelines because they just don’t know what to do.

These are very natural occurrences and will continue for a few more months as we await, what surely will not be, a boring summer.

Looking over the upcoming data points, we don’t see any potential minefields. Jobless Claims should come in right around 345,000. Anything below 340,000 could have a significant one-day bounce in the major indices. The US Economy could really use a return to shrinking claims as we saw earlier this year. We won’t get our hopes up just yet.
Retail Sales will be out on Thursday also and at this time of the year we normally don’t see anything significant but we have seen an increase in planning for back to school sales and the rumor is that stores will be starting those sales earlier than any other time in history. Is Christmas in July around the corner?

PPI, which at other times in history, was as significant a data set as you would get all month, will be coming out on Friday and again, it will be benign.

Volatility will subside for a bit this week as we watch the days get longer and wait for those small opportunities that make life interesting.