Morning Breath May Day

Good morning. Happy Tuesday.


Most Asian/Pacific and European markets were closed today. Of those open, only Japan (down 1.8%) moved more than 1%. Futures here in the States point towards a flat open for the cash market.
The dollar is down. Oil and copper are down. Gold and silver are flat.
April is in the books. After three big up months to start the year, the Dow was flat, the S&P dropped about 0.75%, and the Nas and Russell dropped around 1.5%. Overall this isn’t bad considering the gains coming in. But it was a challenging month to trade. It started with a losing streak, ended with a winning streak and was choppy and directionless in the middle. For the most part, dips were bought and rallies sold, and the lack of direction forced us to take partial profits on initial moves and move stops tight. It wasn’t a time we could sit back and let patterns play out. Now we move onto May where the adage “sell in May and go away” applies. There are lots of cliches on Wall St, and most don’t work because everyone knows about them. But this one is absolutely true. If you go back in history and study the market’s gains/loss during the year, the Nov-Apr time period significantly out-performs the May-Oct time frame. On a year to year basis anything goes, but overall this tendency shouldn’t be ignored. This doesn’t mean we blindly sell any longs and load up shorts, but it does mean we be a little more careful.
BAC is laying off an additionaly 2000 workers (in addition to the 30,000 they’ve already announced)…mostly from their investment banking, commercial banking and international wealth-management divisions.
For what it’s worth, solar stocks are up nicley before the open. The groups has been one of the worst over the last couple years.
Contributed by Jason Leavitt at www.leavittbrothers.com