Market Alert - Pre-Market

Futures vs FV: SP +1.03; DJ +4.01; NASDAQ -1.29

Retail sales of course dominate the headlines with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Many stores are calling the weekend a success as KSS says it had its best Thanksgiving ever, GPS sees big store traffic, JCP has a lot of online visits, etc. Black Friday sales +15% ($5.03B), a record. Even so, it is reported store traffic was down 1%; trends of online shopping of course, but stores were strong Thursday and Friday, quieter on Saturday.


The week has Powell's nomination voted upon. Tax vote later this week with supposedly 6 GOP senators on the bubble, wanting changes to the current bill and some, you know, will never vote for anything while Trump is President. Oh, they can say that does not matter, but they are political hacks above all else and are angling for their spot in history as many are in their last term. They didn't accomplish anything while actually in the prime of their careers in the Senate, so they are grabbing what notoriety they can.


Downgrades: UBS says AAPL iPhone sales are not seeing the demand. WDC downgraded to equal. BWLD to neutral. SQ to sell.


M&A: Meredith (with aid of Koch brothers) is buying Time. Offsetting Bezos' buy of the Washington Post?


Sentiment: Vanguard says the odds of a correction is 70% now. CNBC headline says 'veteran strategists see bull market nearing end after one final eruption upward.' Still a rally no one believes has any staying power. What do we think? It doesn't matter to the market, that is for sure. Yes, it should likely be near an end, but that doesn't mean it will end, so you play what is working.


Fed: Two speakers today, Kash Kerry and Dudley.


OTHER MARKETS
Bonds: 2.331% vs 2.34%

EUR/USD: 1.1957. Dollar down again versus euro as the euro spikes higher off its test of the break higher.

USD/JPY: 110.90. Dollar lower here as well.

Oil: 58.36, -0.59

Gold: 1297.40, -1.14


Futures are off the morning highs, off the morning lows, trading mid-range for the morning. That leaves them mushy, but mushy is not bad. In a continuing uptrend, a soft start lets buyers come back in, and while the move has been back and forth, the trend continues upside. Thus we will watch for bids to return and see if NFLX, XONE, AAP and friends give us entries as we let others run. AMZN is going to open near the initial target as an impressive move on the news of strong online sales continues to see buying the news versus selling.

Jon Johnson, Chief Market Strategist
InvestmentHouse.com
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