Reading Assignments:

• U.S. Stock-Index Futures Advance; European Shares Fluctuate
• Bonds Crush Stocks over the Past 20 Years
• The Gold and Oil Rally – A long Term Look
• US Stock Futures Advance
• Geithner Widens Bills-to-bonds Gap with New Sales
• Earnings Preview for the Last Week of October
• Weekend Market Summary (Must read!)
  

Pre-Market:

Monday looks to be off to a positive start, as futures are up mildly and overseas markets are up overnight. This week, light on the economic news until Thursday, when we will be looking at GDP and personal consumption for indications or clues as to how the recovery is progressing.

Until then, we have a slew of earnings, which I understand that 81% have beat expectations up until now. This morning, McGraw Hill not only beat expectations, but also revised upward guidance. Verizon also beat expectations.

My candle market scans and my candle pattern index both overwhelmingly say “Bearish”. I use these indicators to forecast the next day’s action, and they have been extremely accurate until the past two weeks, since falling to about 50/50 in accuracy. They seem not to be so accurate when we have a lot of media impact such as earnings, which affect the market. It should be noted that they also lose their accuracy briefly at the end of the each quarter, as institutional managers “dress up ” their portfolios.

I have no new additions to my trading portfolio today. I see that JADE is up to almost $4.00 in pre-market, so I raised my sell limit on ½ position to 3.98. I’ll take some off the table today. 3.98/3.21 would give me 24% return on my first ½ position of the trade.

NVAX is also up big pre-market on the heels of Obama’s declaration of “National Emergency” on H1N1.

Right now, I have a lot of money sitting around doing nothing other than money market rate performance. My primary trading is out of a trading account that is only about 10% of my total portfolio. Getting old makes you conservative.

I’m looking to employ this money, primarily in international (sorry, not yet sold on Americas’s recovery outlook). I missed the early breakout of the gates on the international. So I’m waiting for a pullback to get in – I have stochastic alerts and charts on about 30 international and emerging markets ETF’s and will jump in when the time is right.

If it doesn’t look like we’ll get a pullback internationally, then I’ll be forced to make a decision about chasing performance.

I’m also considering interim investing in worldwide currency plays, and I have put some money to work in emerging markets bond funds and ETF’s.