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Daily Market Update – June 15, 2015 (Close)
If the morning’s pre-opening futures were going to be any indication, this week wasn’t going to be getting off to a good start. With the DJIA down nearly 100 points some 90 minutes before the market’s open, there have been a couple of instances in the past month that such negative pre-openings reversed themselves very quickly as trading opened on the regular session, but that’s not usually the case. Today wasn’t going to be one of those days. This morning the pretext for the drop was some more disappointment concerning a Greek default. Last week the large moves up and down were attributed to polar opposite news on the situation of an agreement between Greece and the ECB and IMF. This morning the news wasn’t good, just as the last of the news last week wasn’t promising. Ahead of this week’s FOMC Statement release, which also may weigh heavily on the market, even if only due to some change in wording, the market doesn’t appear to be well equipped to deal with any adversity. While there’s always a chance that a rabbit will be pulled out of a hat and the Greek financial crisis can continue to be kicked down the road, there’s not too much prospect of good news coming from many quarters for now. But with all of the negativity surrounding the market, the reality is that it was barely down even 2% from its highs as the morning was set to begin. That’s still quite a distance from where a mini-correction would take us, which would be about another 2.5% lower after today’s final tally, which, maybe coincidentally, is where technicians would point out there is some support. Most times I’m not overly anxious to see earnings season descend upon us, but right now that may be the only hope for a near term catalyst to move markets higher. Unfortunately, that’s still about 4 weeks away and until then we’ll have to continue to deal with interest rate hike fears and whatever dysfunction may come to us from Europe. With so many positions set to expire this week and with very little time to recover from any FOMC induced sell off, I would like to look at any opportunity to better position anything that is due to expire this week. At the moment there is some chance for some assignments, but those opportunities may be fleeting if weakness persists or grows this week. With just a little bit of cash added to the reserve from the single assignment last week and with a real desire to add to those reserves, I don’t expect to be looking for many, or any, new positions this week. After last week of not having added any new positions I would love to do something, but this may not be the right time to think about committing any new or existing funds, even if you have the money to spare. Right now, even a new blue chip could be the same as a speculative position, being dragged down by market momentum. This may be a good time to heed ages old advice and wait until seeing the whites of their eyes to get an idea of where market sentiment is going. For now it seems
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