MARKET COMMENT
Dave Fry’s ETF Digest, May 21, 2009
Artist Donna Walsh has her artwork titled as such. It’s ripped off here because I liked it and it serves as a metaphor for traders leaving Manhattan for the Hamptons with their saddlebags full of secondary offering deal loot. The good folks in Dodge are left gypped. It’s like I was saying yesterday, Da Boyz have secondary offerings to get placed and clients better play ball or be cut off from future tips and deals.
The hangover from yesterday’s Fed minutes lingered today. Bulls weren’t helped by jobs data, Leading Indicators and the Philly Fed survey. More importantly is the ongoing sharp decline in the dollar and worries about credit ratings of the US and Great Britain negatively affected bond prices. Interesting times, eh?
Volume remains on the light side but breadth both sucked and blowed.
It’s amazing that our hosting service would fail us twice in one week especially after all these assurances that this migration to a new server would be seamless and smooth. The most troubling thing is not being notified by them of this transition well enough in advance to prepare people for any down time. But, someone I know close to the mystical astrological sphere told me the other day that Mercury was in retrograde. This I was assured causes troubles with communications. Don’t you hate it when they’re right?
I guess my technical trading system and loathing of market fundamentals got in sync. This isn’t common but systems always trump emotion even if the latter are seem reasonable at the time. Take it while you can get it. So are we lucky or smart to be out? Neither. After all, systems are designed to work not fail. But, as ETF Digest Sacred Cow X intones: Things Change. We’re ready to accept whatever Mr. Market’s next move is.
It seemed clear to me this week that the Street was determined to get secondary offerings done at good prices. Propping a light volume market was an easy thing to do and they got their deals done at the point of a gun to their best clients.
It’s infuriating what’s happening with our government, dollar and bonds. My parents would be shocked and so would yours if you’re my age. They lived through the Depression and fought in a major war. The result was they achieved success and pride in country. Let’s remember them on this Memorial Day and challenge current politicians and officials to do better and make sacrifices.
We have more medical issues on Tuesday and hope the news is good. At least then we’ll know what our schedule will be. Our resident fox made three appearances that I noticed today. It seems odd to see this in a city of this size but the neighborhood is heavily wooded with large lots.
Have a wonderful holiday weekend everyone. Drive safely please.
Disclaimer: Among other issues the ETF Digest maintains positions in: IEF, TLT, TBT, UDN, DBV, DBC, UNG and DBA.
The charts and comments are only the author’s view of market activity and aren’t recommendations to buy or sell any security. Market sectors and related ETFs are selected based on his opinion as to their importance in providing the viewer a comprehensive summary of market conditions for the featured period. Chart annotations aren’t predictive of any future market action rather they only demonstrate the author’s opinion as to a range of possibilities going forward. More detailed information, including actionable alerts, are available to subscribers at www.etfdigest.com.
