4/16 Morningline: Indicators

Today is the last day of trading for April options, one of 12 expiry days that set the rhythm of the market. (The other rhythm-setter are the quarterly earnings seasons, which act less like an heart-beat than a periodic tsunami that washes across traders.)

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	macd trend	sto	sto trend
SPY $119.40
TLT $89.68

At 11:24 a.m. Eastern

I just lost my electric power, midway through the sentence above, and am working on a lap-top across AT&T's cellphone network, which is not quite as speedy as the broadband Comcast provides. So until Pacific Power comes through and restores electricity to Hollywood District in Portland, Oregon, things will be a bit sketchy, to say the least.

But soldier on we must. Good traders never let adversity keep them from the markets they love..

Blue-chip stocks (SPY) opened within the three-day range and were trading narrowly. This has been a pattern the past few days -- lackadaisical open that works its way upward.

Treasury long-term bonds (TLT) also remained within the three-day range.

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The minerals -- gold (GLD) and oil (USO) were down, along with emerging markets (EEM), as were the currencies: EUR/USD and USD/JPY.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	macd trend	sto	sto trend
VIX 18.84
JNK $39.95
GLD $111.42
USO $40.65
EEM $42.58
EUR/USD $1.3501
USD/JPY ¥92.05

At 11:30 a.m. Eastern

I'll post the technical glances once power is restored. [This has been done. See above.] (If power is restored today -- my ability to post is based on one poor little battery at this point. Once it goes, I'm gone!)

Abbreviations:
psar - Parabolic Stop and Reverse
adx - Average Directional Index
pps - Person's Proprietary Signal
ma20 - 20-day moving average
macd - Moving Average Convergence-Divergence
mfi - Money Flow Index
sto - Fast Stochastic 

Exchange-Traded Fund Symbols:
EEM - emerging markets
EUR/USD - euro/dollar currency pair
GLD - gold
JNK - high-yield corporate bonds
SPY - blue-chip stocks
TLT - Treasury long-term bonds
USD/JPY - dollar/yen currency pair
USO - crude oil
VIX - fear index

About the glance:  The colors indicate the state of each signal. 

• trend: Determined by the 5-day moving average, green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
• adx: orange for above 30-up, blue for 20-down, purple for in the middle. Red is most prone to whipsaws
• psar, pps, macd: green for bull mode, red for bear
• sto: green for overbought, red for oversold, yellow for the neutral zone.

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