IBM to the Rescue

With the new Harry Potter book out this weekend, it's no wonder that the market was having trouble today, everybody was home reading. Ok, maybe not everybody, I was at work enjoying another wonderful Monday...maybe not. But there were a few happy people there who were smiling about their Harry Potter experience over the weekend.

Today, the market traded low volume again. I guess after the lackluster option expiration volume, today was uninspired to trade much either. Today's volume was the least in a month at just around 1.2 billion shares on the NYSE. Volume like this is not the things bull markets continue to run on.

We keep a close eye on the interest rates of late due to the powerful nature of the credit expansion that has taken place locally and globally. Today the bond market fell again pushing the yields up on Treasury's to their highest level in a couple of months. We know that the bond market hasn't made a decisive move here but that move could come at any moment and we want to make sure we see it when it happens. Ideally, we would be able to recognize something long before the market would, I know, wishful thinking.

IBM announced earnings tonight and improved them from last quarter which were dismal. More importantly, the stock vaulted higher by about 3 points in the after hours market. The leadership of IBM has not been to the upside for a while but recently it has lead the charge higher. We aren't skeptical about that, of course not.

Lots more earnings coming in the next couple of weeks. Last week we heard from GE, not so good, and today we heard from another giant, Citigroup, that it wasn't too happy either with earnings. So, there are two big reasons for the softness in the market. Of course tonight we got IBM which is there to save the day.

Dow Industrials: 10574.99 -65.84 (Let's see, yes, it's in the 10500's again)
BGEIX: 10.83 (no change)

PS I apologize for not responding to one of the comments. So, here is what I say: The question was why low CPI and PPI aren't good for the market along with higher consumer confidence. My answer is that the CPI and PPI numbers are reported to be low but I don't believe them. Low inflation usually is good for the market but the actual rate of inflation has to be low, not just reported numbers. You know, we can't include anything that is actually going up in CPI, we might have to pay those senior citizens (I'm getting close-no comment, Trish) more Social Security.