Weekly S and P Report Comments
by Sean Lusk, PFGBEST
1-877-294-7757
slusk@PFGBEST.com
Monday, February 06, 2012 at 3:00 PM
E Mini S&P settles 1339.00 unchanged
Stock futures started the week mixed, following Friday’s strong performance, amid concern about Europe’s debt crisis as Greek leaders wrestled with spending cuts to receive aid and avoid a default. The e mini S&P fell as much as 8.75 points in morning trading Monday as European leaders ramped up pressure on Greek politicians to meet the conditions of a 130 billion euro($171 billion) bailout, saying time was running out. French President Sarkozy met German Chancellor Merkel as Greece’s interim Prime Minister, Lucas Papademos, planned to confer with the so-called troika of global lenders. A meeting of Greek political leaders was delayed by a day until tomorrow as they struggled for a unified response.
Today’s mixed result in all three benchmark indexes comes off one of the best starts to the year for equities. This performance was highlighted by Friday’s unemployment number that beat even the most bullish forecast, as the jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent. However many skeptics remain to see if this bullish performance can continue as daily volumes in all three benchmark indexes have been much lower than usual for this time of year. The biggest headwinds to the market remain in Europe as traders will be keeping an eye on if Greece can meet the EU’s latest austerity demands, overnight and into tomorrow. Also earnings season is still in full swing as a bevy of releases are still to come out this week. So far, earnings have beat projections at 66 percent of the 268 companies in the S&P 500 that reported quarterly results since January 9th. Analyst’s project profits probably grew 4.9 percent in the fourth quarter, according to a Bloomberg survey. The projection has fallen from 6.2 percent at the end of last year. Please call me at anytime with questions or comments.
Daily Swing #s ESH2
R2-1346.75
R1-1342.75
Pivot-1336.50
S1-1332.50
S2-1326.25
Daily Swing #s YMH2
R2-12836
R1-12806
Pivot-12764
S1-12734
S2-12692
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