Daily Market Update – February 29, 2016 (Close) This week seemed to be starting like so many weeks of late, except that the less than effusive bad news around the world doesn’t seem to be taking hold here this morning. Foreign stock markets were lower, as was oil. While that was the case early this morning, the US stock market futures had turned around from their lows during the early trading in the session and were getting ready to start the day at the flat line. Then a funny, or maybe not so funny thing happened. Or didn’t happen. Oil reversed itself and actually enrt on to finish the day 3% higher, but the US stock market didn’t follow and instead lost 0.8% on the day. That’s something that might be noteworthy, but let’s hope not. There’s not too much else of note this week other than the week ending Employment Situation Report and maybe some more gyrations for the price of oil, as some cautious bulls are coming out of hiding and predicting significant gains by the end of the year. On the surface that would seem like good news, but I wonder if the market would actually feel that way if they started seeing some tangible increases in prices, not just for oil but also for those products that rely on oil. That might result in more days like today. That’s something that I’ve been fretting about for a few weeks. That would be the worst of all worlds. The market going lower following oil and then going lower as oil rises. As with most market gains, I prefer that they come slowly and methodically, so I’m not really hoping for any kind of drastic move higher this week. With a little money in hand I could per persuaded to use some of it to open new positions this week, but I’m going to remain cautious. Today may have been a good day to sit on the sidelines, seeing how the day really did deteriorate. While the tenor of February has been very good for the last two weeks, just as last Friday’s GDP could have been a major mover in either direction, the same holds true for this week’s Employment Situation Report. As has been the case of late, I would like to see the market move higher, but more so that I can get some more opportunity to get some calls sold on currently uncovered positions. That has been a very, very slow and arduous process, but it does feel good each time something that has been sitting for far too long as an unproductive member of my portfolio actually does something worthwhile. With lots of ex-dividend positions this week I don’t have quite the compelling need to make trades, but I wouldn’t run away from the opportunity either, particularly as there are no positions that could be potentially rolled over this week. Maybe tomorrow, but I think that my caution continues. . . p> |