Morning Note: The Trader's Ultimate Challenge

Three heavyweights (to put it mildly) -- Apple, Microsoft and Google -- per their after-the-bell earnings releases yesterday scored knockouts. I.e., they soundly beat analysts' estimates.

And, lo and behold, of the three, Google's the only one catching a bid so far this morning (up 0.48%). Apple's and Microsoft's shares are both off notably, as I type. Priced for perfection? Ya think?? Although I wouldn't count them out just yet...

My calendar today has me keeping this morning's note brief. A relatively brief, but telling, main weekly message will follow shortly. I'll likely not be able to offer up my thoughts on today's Fed policy announcement until tomorrow morning.

Asian equities were mixed overnight, with 8 of the 16 markets we track closing lower.

Europe's in the green this morning, with all but 3 of the 19 bourses we follow trading higher as I type.

U.S. stocks are mixed to start the session: Dow down 83 points (0.24%), SP500's down 0.08%, SP500 Equal Weight is down 0.36%, Nasdaq 100 is up 0.39%, Nasdaq Comp is up 0.56%, Russell 2000's up 0.63%.

The VIX (SP500 implied volatility) is down 0.26%. VXN (Nasdaq 100 i.v.) is down 3.42%.

Oil futures are up 0.53%, gold's down 0.15%, silver's up 0.09%, copper futures are down 1.38% and the ag complex is up 0.05%.

The 10-year treasury is down (yield up) and the dollar is up 0.23%.

Led by URNM (uranium miners), ALB (lithium miners), emerging market equities (broad index), solar stocks and Latin American equities -- but dragged by utilities, consumer staples, financials, industrials and materials stocks -- our core mix is up 0.10% so far this morning.

Replace "universe" with "markets" in the following Alan Watts quote and you elegantly sum up the ultimate challenge of the trader:

"Human intelligence has a very serious limitation. That limitation is that it is a scanning system of conscious attention which is linear. That is to say it examines the world in lines, rather as you would pass the beam of a flashlight across a room. Or a spotlight. That's why our education takes so long. It takes so long because we have to scan miles of lines of print. And regard that you see as basic information.

Now the universe does not come at us in lines. It comes at us as a multi-dimensional continuum, in which everything is happening altogether all at once. And it comes at us much too quickly to be translated into lines of print, or other information, however fast they may be scanned."

Have a great day!
Marty