Thursday, January 19, 2012. 9.25 a.m.

The big worry among market technicians has been whether the U.S. market would find the 200-day m.a. to be overhead resistance that would end the rally. Failure at the 200-day might mean the summer correction was the first leg down in a new bear market, and the rally off the October low was just a bear market rally, doomed to fail and bring on the next leg down.

But so far anyway the major indexes have broken out above their 200-day m.a.’s and while it isn’t a clear break out, it seems to be increasingly confirmed.

But just as investors begin to gain confidence in the rally, the market has again become short-term overbought above short-term moving averages to a degree that could soon bring a pullback that will bring back the worries.

We’ll be watching our technical indicators for that possibility, and to determine whether we should take some of our profits from the rally.

My apologies but I’m travelling this morning and that’s all I have time for.

To read my weekend newspaper column ‘Brazil Looks Like A Buying Opportunity Again’ Click here.

Subscribers to Street Smart Report: The Mid-Week in-depth ‘Signals and Recommendations’ report on the U.S. market is in the subscribers’ area of the Street Smart Report website from yesterday, and a hotline from last evening.  There is also an in-depth ‘Global Markets’ report from Tuesday. 

The market closed up again.

The Dow closed up 96 points, or 0.8%. The S&P 500 closed up 1.1%. The NYSE Composite closed up 1.3%. The Nasdaq closed up 1.5%. The Nasdaq 100 closed up 1.4%. The Russell 2000 closed up 1.8%. The DJ Transportation Avg. closed up 1.0%. The DJ Utilities Avg closed up 0.1%.

Gold closed up $10 an ounce at $1,659 an ounce.

Oil closed up $0.93 a barrel at $101.52 a barrel.

The U.S. Treasury bond etf TLT closed down 1.2%.

Markets in Europe closed up fractionally mixed yesterday. The London FTSE closed up 0.2%. The German DAX closed up 0.3%. France closed down 0.2%.

The DJ Asia-Pacific Index closed up 0.9%.

Among individual markets:

Australia closed down 0.1%. China closed up 1.7%. Hong Kong closed up 1.3%. India closed up 1.2%. Indonesia closed up 0.6%. Japan closed up 1.0%. Malaysia closed up 0.1%. New Zealand closed up 0.5%. South Korea closed up 1.2%. Singapore closed up 0.6%. Taiwan closed up 0.2%. Thailand closed up 0.7%.

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European markets are up this morning. The London FTSE is up 0.5%. Germany’s DAX is up 0.8%. France’s CAC is up 1.8%

Oil is up $1.00 a barrel at $101.63.

Gold is up $1 an ounce at $1,660 an ounce.

This is a quite heavy week for potential market-moving economic reports including the Producer Price Index, Consumer Price Index, New Housing Starts, and Existing Home Sales. To see the full list click here, and look at the left side of the page it takes you to.

Tuesday’s report was that the Empire State (NY) Mfg Index jumped to 13.5 in January, better than forecasts of a rise to 11.3, and its highest level in 9 months.

Yesterday it was that inflation remains tame in the U.S., with the Producer Price Index declining 0.1% in December versus the consensus forecast of an increase of 0.1%. And Industrial Output was up 0.4% in December in line with the consensus forecast. And the NAHB Housing Market Index measuring home-builder optimism rose 4 points to 25, much better than forecasts, the 4th monthly increase in a row.

This morning’s reports are that weekly unemployment claims plunged by 50,000 last week to 352,000, the lowest level since April, 2008. The four-week moving average declined to 379,000. And inflation at the consumer level also remains tame, with the Consumer Price Index coming in unchanged in December.

The disappointing report was that new housing starts declined by 4.1% in December, but that comes after an unusual surge of 9.1% in November.

Our pre-open indicators are now pointing to the Dow being up 50 points or so in the early going.

To read my weekend newspaper column ‘Brazil Looks Like A Buying Opportunity Again’ Click here.

Subscribers to Street Smart Report: The Mid-Week in-depth ‘Signals and Recommendations’ report on the U.S. market is in the subscribers’ area of the Street Smart Report website from yesterday, and a hotline from last evening. There is also an in-depth ‘Global Markets’ report from Tuesday.

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I’ll be back Saturday morning with the regular Saturday morning post, as usual later than the weekday posts, probably around 11 a.m. eastern time. (This blog appears every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning!).

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