MARKET COMMENT
April 9, 2007
And…invest global.
That’s been the trend for the past few years.
Today was no exception.
You’d think at some point this run would end
but no.
With US markets slightly higher
to treading water, many overseas ETFs made new highs today.
A yawner here.
It might be that the rise in base metals had a positive
impact on resource rich markets like Latin America.
Other Latin American markets are regaining strength led by Peru, Colombia,
Chile and Argentina.
These countries continue to benefit while
oddly enough, oil rich Venezuela
struggles with out of control inflation, government spending and currency
controls.
But you wouldn’t know that
listening to el Jefe Chavez.
Meanwhile back in the good ol’ but
boring US
rumors are buzzing about another private equity deal this time involving Dow
Chemical.
Prior rumors included
materials sector Alcoa which will report earnings tomorrow.
Those rumors combined with bullish base
metals should give the materials sector some life.
What else is interesting?
How about the weird world of semi’s?
Last week Micron badly missed earnings and revenues estimates but was up
4% in after hours trading.
Then the next
morning the stock was down 4% after GS cut its rating.
Today heavyweight AMD missed and warned and
the stock rallied nearly 4%.
Why?
It may be a combination of the stock being
“sold-out” and analysts’ liking their cost cutting efforts.
It doesn’t seem like a reason to buy to me,
but then we just deal in ETFs thankfully.
In other US sectors small and mid-caps continue to do well
in step by step fashion.
The other big news today was the decline in oil prices.
According to some pundits that drop pushed
gold prices down.
I would disagree since
oil dropped more than 3% and gold only fell less than half of one percent.
When there’s a geopolitical crisis gold can
move up dramatically and then fall equally so.
But the recent episode with Iran didn’t reach the fever pitch
as prior crisis.
Gold will more often
than not follow economic conditions that may fuel inflation and the fate of the
dollar.
The dollar was modestly higher
today on the back of stronger employment numbers causing gold to falter.
At least that’s my feeling um, today.
These are some of the markets to keep an eye on.
As or more important, earnings reports being in earnest tomorrow
with AA leading things off.
There’s still a lot of money for deal-making which seems the
major prop to the equity market at least in the US.
Overseas markets seem in a world of their own.
Every time you think their bull move has run its
course, up again they go.
To have only a
US
focus at this time seems so last century, right?
Have a pleasant evening.
Disclaimer:
Among other
issues, the ETF Digest maintains long or short positions in: DBB, ILF, EWW, EWZ,
EWA, EWC, EWO, TKF, ISL, EWY, FXI, RTM, MDY, IWM, KBE, XHB, DBE, GLD and UDN.