2012/02/24: Quick Post: Knock-Knock-Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

With due respect and apologies to Bob Dylan for borrowing the lyric, the equities everywhere would likely consider it ‘heavenly’ for the US laggard S&P 500 future to finally knock out the last of the resistance from last summer. And March S&P 500 future knocking on the door at 1,367 (major high from last May) is the last shoe to fall with the DJIA above 13,000 and March NASDAQ 100 future pushing through 2,600. As noted previous, if March S&P 500 future should exceed that old high by more than a few dollars for the weekly close, it is more than the next nominal $10 or $15 signal. Weekly oscillators and historic congestion point to something more on the order of the 1,400 area at a minimum.

2012/02/23: Quick Post: Technical Projections and Comments Now Available

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The Current Rohr Technical Projections – Key Levels & Select Comments (as of Wednesday’s US Close) are now available through the link in the right hand column. We have summarized some of the most interesting and telling tendencies below.

Somewhat more upbeat economic data assisting the equities has also been putting a bit of pressure on the US dollar and primary government bond markets. Yet they have also been quite resilient, not exhibiting any UP trend reversing effects just yet in govvies, even if the US Dollar Index failure below .7950 seems much more negative.

2012/02/21: Quick Post: Observations and Weekly Reports & Events Calendar Now Available

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The full calendar is available through the link in the right hand column. There is also a bit more extensive than usual fundamental factor review this week. That is due to the ostensible finalization of a Greek debt deal not seeming to affect trends to any great degree. If this is such a major success, why were the equities only marginally higher from Friday in the US, and the European stock markets lower?

Watch for what happens with the private bond holders (PSI), and especially next week’s EU Summit where the actual funding commitments are supposed to be finalized. Wonder if they’ll pull another one of those stunts where the other ‘damaged’ countries (Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland) are putting up money for Greece?

2012/02/17: Quick Post: The Agony and Ecstaquities

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There seems good reason for ecstatic extension of the Ecstaquities rally. Bears may still feel that headwinds into the middle of this year will be more than enough to reverse the current up trend. Yet the price activity of the past several days has been underpinned by what is now a full week of better than expected economic data.

The ‘Agony’ was Wednesday’s sharp equities selloff from new highs for the current rally, which seemed to reinforce some “tired” trend indications. The inability of the March S&P 500 future to push through critical 1,350-55 resistance in the wake of such strong economic news and central bank largesse seemed an important ‘macro-technical’ failure.

However, at the end of the day the potentially ‘toppy’ price activity in equities that even saw daily MACD’s mildly DOWN only left us with the classical consideration: “indicators are indicators” and always still require price movement confirmation. And in this case it was clear March S&P 500 future needed to post a daily Close back below the gap above the 1,329.50 previous high in the wake of the US Employment report. Too bad for the bears that yesterday’s strong Australian Employment indications along with constructive US data just did not allow for any further pressure on the equities.

And that has continued this morning on the better-than-expected UK Retail Sales and Euro-zone Construction Output; from two of the key economies that are allegedly headed into recession! Not much for the bears to lean against.

So now what?

2012/02/014: Quick Post: OGB is back!! But is the cure worse than the disease?

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

“The operation was a huge success. Too bad the patient died.” If it wasn’t so serious, it would be a good giggle akin to that old joke.  We are referring to the OGB movement. You’ve all heard of OWS, the Occupy Wall Street movement. Well, even though Germany backed off from the truly insane idea of having a budget overseer resident in Athens, about the same effective function is being demanded by the lenders controlling the funds for the Greek Debt Dilemma bailout.

We refer to this as the Occupy Greek Budget movement, or OGB. If there was any real institutional cultural memory (of which we often lament the lack), this is the last thing the Germans should have found acceptable. How quickly they forget. Well, maybe not so quickly. However, they obviously are failing to consider how they felt when French troops occupied Germany’s Ruhr valley after World War I (a good example of why forced repayment doesn’t work) to co-opt the profits from German industrial output because… they could not keep up with their payments.

In that instance it was of course war reparations, whereas current circumstances are more so a case of Greek malfeasance. That said, draconian cures do not often create sustainable solutions to the worst sort of problems. It calls for more creativity than that. And for all the Greek political class is significantly responsible for the problems now foisted on the general population, perhaps the bitterness of the Greek people will indeed end up driving a solution to the problem. There is one radical alternative nobody in Greece seems to have worked out just yet…

2012/02/13: Observations and Weekly Reports & Events Calendar Now Available

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The full calendar is available through the link in the right hand column. There is also the usual fundamental factor review. That is focused on the highly split (fancy legal metaphor for sharply split into two sections) politico-economic influences at this time. And you don’t likely need us to tell you that this is due to better sentiment toward the US in the face of still fraught issues around the European Debt Crisis. That remains so even as Greece seems to capitulate on Troika demands.

2012/02/10: Quick Post: Courtesy Access to Rohr Report Market Alert Today

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

Short & Sweet (well, maybe not so sweet) today. The further devolution of the Greek debt situation into the intractable state we had expected at some point seems to be upon us. The market manifestation of previous good news was March S&P 500 future pushing so extensively above its resistance at 1,310-15 last Friday. That was truly impressive, as it also represented a fresh UP Break out of its nominal down trendline across the highs from last May and July. As noted on Wednesday, this brought about the typical perverse evolution of expectations then applied, as the extended up move meant the burden of proof was obviously on the bulls to put the market up through serial resistances in the 1,352.70 and 1,367 areas (the lead contract futures exhaustion high from early last May.)

Especially with the DJIA and NASDAQ 100 already having traded above last year’s highs any violation of the old high in the S&P 500 future resistance should represent the final confirmation the equities can likely significantly extend their rally. And yet, it only managed (in premarket electronic trading yesterday morning) to trade within a whisker of the 1,352.70 lead contract futures high from last July prior to slipping back on the day.

Of course, this is all about the significantly divergent economic influences from a seemingly improved US economy driving equities higher while there is a far less friendly outlook for Europe. That is creating both a specific economic drag, and a cautionary psychology for even the US equity markets. Some say the latter would be trading a lot higher already (based on expected earnings and a reasonable multiple) if it were not for the combined general recessionary drag from Europe, and…

…the risk of significant exacerbation of those tendencies if the Greek Debt Deal fails to materialize timely. Of course, that has been something which week-to-week and month-to-month has missed every deadline for agreement on combined austerity and debt forgiveness. The many convoluted factors are now seeming to become more intractable (as we had surmised they might), and that much more critical due to a key “real” deadline.

2012/02/09: Quick Post: Bank of England ups Asset Purchase… hits Gilts

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When is a support a burden? When it has a split inference. At least that seems to be the nature of these various asset support and quantitative easing programs. The Bank of England gets approval for an additional £50 billion of firing power for its Asset Purchase Programme, and what do the Gilts do? Immediately sell off.

And yet, that is not so startling as it might seem. The Fed alluding to its intention to proceed with QE2 in August 2010 also brought immediate pressure on both the Gilt and Bund; and ultimately led to significant weakness in US govvies once the program started in November 2010. It’s about inflation expectations.

2012/02/08: Quick Post: Courtesy Access to Rohr Report Brief Update Today

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Short & Sweet again today. March S&P 500 future pushing so extensively above its resistance at 1,310-15 last Friday is truly impressive, as it also represented a fresh UP Break out of its nominal down trendline across the highs from last May and July. The typical perverse evolution of expectations now applies, as the extended up move means the burden of proof is now obviously on the bulls to put the market up through serial resistances in the 1,352.70 and 1,367 areas.

Especially as the latter of those is indeed the top of the rally into the exhaustion high early last May, with the DJIA and NASDAQ 100 already out at new highs any violation of the old high in the S&P 500 future would represent the final confirmation the equities can likely significantly extend their rally.

However, in spite of the much stronger economic data in the US as well as better indications elsewhere, all of the cards on the fundamental influences may not yet have been dealt. Especially as it regards the ever evolving and recently more creative solution for the Greek Debt Dilemma, there are some key factors which are lurking below the surface of the obvious benefits of the current attempt at an ‘escrow’ deal to prevent a default on the existing debt.

2012/02/06: Quick Post: Observations and Weekly Reports & Events Calendar Now Available

© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The full calendar is available through the link in the right hand column. There is also a bit more extensive than usual fundamental factor review this week. That is due to the highly bifurcated (fancy legal metaphor for sharply split into two sections) politico-economic influences at this time. And you don’t likely need us to tell you that this is due to better sentiment toward the US in the face of still seemingly intractable issues around the European Debt Crisis…

Especially Greece. More on that below.