3/19 Morningline

Update 10:35 a.m. Eastern:  SPY is on the move, dropping 0.9% high to low so far today. So much for "Sleeping Beauty".  TLT has also picked up some velocity, traversing 0.5% on a rise.

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 All was quiet among most indicators at the open, as though the quadruple witching day had cast a spell upon the markets. Although it is quite hard to imagine Wall Street as Sleeping Beauty, no image can go too far in the search for the perfect metaphor.

The big mover was EUR/USD currency pair, as the euro opened at the bottom of yesterday's trading range, and then continued to fall.

Blue chip stocks (SPY) opened down and dropped to the bottom of yesterday's range, traversing 0.4% high to low. Treasury long-term bonds (TLT) opened below yesterday's range and then rose, covering 0.4% low to high.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	sto
SPY $116.58
TLT $91.01

The EUR/USD decline marked a breakdown from the range that has held pretty steady for a week. So far today it has traversed 0.7% high to low.

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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

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EUR/USD showed a psar bear signal, with a bull-mode macd dropping swifty toward the zero line. The sto plummeted into oversold territory. Beginning today I'm adding an additional technical tool to my kit. The DeMark pivot points, developed by the trader Tom DeMark, show the anticipated high and low of today's trading range based on yesterday's open, high, low and close. A close above the high or below the low pivot point is, respectively, a bull or bear signal. Very short term, I would imagine, but we shall see. An Investopedia article describes the formulas. Today's DeMark pivot points for SPY are $117.16/$116.46.

New this week, from the author of Liar's Poker, a look inside the Doomsday Machine.

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	sto
JNK $39.56
GLD $109.99
USO $39.74
EEM $41.51
EUR/USD $1.3538
USD/JPY ¥90.53

My holdings:

Among my options that expire after trading ends on Friday:

• AKS, iron condor (p19/-p20/-p25/p26) at $22.27 was poised  to expire worthless at the end of the day. No action needed.

April options:

• The MCO covered call (-c29) has moved up to a high so far of $30.86, although it has since dropped back.

Dividend stocks:

• AOD at $8.90 is showing both pps and psar beaer signals and has traversed 2.7% high to low. It goes ex-div on March 23, but time to go, I think.
  

	trend	adx	psar	pps	macd	sto
AOD $8.90

• NLY at $18.47 has begun to decline. The sto has moved from overbought into the neutral zone.is up for the fourth straight day and stands about $1 below my basis.

Zombie:

• PALM, the remains of a covered call that expired unexercised, at $4.56. Earnings weren't bad, guidance was abysmal. No joy. No future. No profit.

About the indicators: SPY tracks the S&P 500, TLT: 20- and 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds, JNK: High-yield corporate debt, GLD: gold, USO, oil, EEM: emerging markets, EUR/USD: how many dollars to buy a euro, USD/JPY: how many yen to buy a dollar. About the glance: The colors indicate the state of each signal.

• trend: green for up, red for down, yellow for sideways
• adx: green for above 30-up, red for 20-down, yellow 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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