3/4 Morningline

The Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton gained undying fame with opening line to his novel Paul Clifford: "It was a dark and stormy night."
Were the 1st baron of Lytton a market writer today, it would surely strain in powers of composition: "It was a gray and insipid morn"? "It was a bland and comatose dawn"?

Once again my main indicators are not on the move this morning, straining even my powers of far-fetched metaphory, of creating golden prose from factual dross.

But challenges must be met . . .

Blue-chip stocks (SPY) opened the day up near the top of a three-day trading range. The etf is trading at $112.60 or so. A break above $112.88 would move above both the range and the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement of the decline from Jan. 19 to Feb. 5. Support is at $111.58.

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Abbreviations
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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Treasury long-term bonds (TLT) opened the day down near the middle of a three-day trading range. The chart showed a pps bear signal. The psar and macd remain in bull mode.

To the numbers, at about 10:10 a.m. Eastern . . . Indicators: Blue chip stocks etf (SPY) is trading at $112.57, entered psar bull mode at close on Feb. 11 (at $108.13) Fear index or volatility (VIX) 18.66, bear (bullish for stocks), Feb. 17 (21.72) Treasury long bonds (TLT) $91.10, bull, Feb. 25 ($91.20) Corporate junk bonds (JNK) $38.92, bull, Feb. 22 ($38.91)  Emerging markets (EEM) $39.98, bull, Feb. 11 ($39.93) Gold (GLD) $111.08, bull, Feb. 11 ($107.13) Oil (USO) $39.11, bull, Feb. 16, ($37.20)

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Forex currency pairs:

• Dollars per euro (EUR/USD) $1.3618, bull, March 3 ($1.3696)
• Yen per dollar (USD/JPY) ¥89.02, bear, Feb. 25 (¥89.07)

Stock option holdings, March expiry:

• AKS, iron condor (p19/-p20/-c25/c26), $24.25, bull, March 3 ($22.81)
• CAL, covered call (-c19), $20.77, bull, Feb. 9 ($19.16)
• CSCO, iron condor (p22/-p23/-c25/c26), $24.79, bull, Feb. 4 ($23.16)
• GCI, covered call (-c15), $15.99, bull, Feb. 16 ($14.80) 
• WFC, iron condor (p26/-p27/-c29/c30), $28.55, bull, Feb. 22 ($28.01)

Zombies:

• MCO, long shares, $27.16, bear, Feb 4 ($26.39)
• PALM, long shares, $6.11, bear, Feb. 18 ($9.62)
  

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