Morning Note: Stocks Testing Support

If I were judging merely by the green across my screen so far this morning, although the price moves aren't earth-shatteringly positive, I'd say somebody's talking, or cease-firing, or doing something positive with regard to the situation that presently dominates the headlines.

Well, no such luck. You might say, other than Ukraine declaring a state of emergency and instructing all citizens to leave Russia, and the cancelling of a planned meeting between the US Secretary of State and the Russian Foreign Minister, and social media reports of "armored columns in tactical deployments approaching the Russia-Ukraine border"-- clearly, those aren't positive "other thans" -- that there's been a bit of a lull, relative to the past few days. 

Well, I guess it's a stretch to say there's a "lull" in the news...

As I type, that market green-ness has dissipated a bit.

As for the technical picture, per the SP500 daily chart below, the index stopped cold (at least for the moment) on what has been a well-tested, and supportive over the past several months, support line (in red):

I wouldn't hold my breath this time around; as I've been illustrating, the technical picture is presently not pretty...

In fact, in the time it took me to type the above, the S&P 500 has gone from up .75% to up 0.17% on the morning.

Asian equities had a constructive night last night, with all but 3 of the 16 markets we track (Japan's was shuttered) closing in the green.

Europe's holding onto some gains so far this morning, with 13 of the 19 bourses we follow trading up as I type.

US major averages have (for the moment) now surrendered those early morning gains: Dow down 20 points (0.06%), SP500 up 0.05%, SP500 Equal Weight up 0.07%, Nasdaq 100 up 0.04%, Nasdaq Comp up 0.05%, Russell 2000 up 0.09%.  

The VIX sits at 28.98, up 0.59%.

Oil futures are up 1.74%, gold's up 0.24%, silver's up 1.26%, copper futures are down 0.32% and the ag complex (DBA) is down 0.02%.

The 10-year treasury is down (yield up) and the dollar is up 0.04%.

Among our 38 core positions (excluding cash and short-term bond ETF), 26 -- led by carbon credits, MP (rare earth miner), base metals miners, uranium miners and energy stocks -- are in the green so far this morning. The losers are being led lower by Mexican equities, AT&T, base metals futures, Verizon and utilities stocks. 

"Governments rarely understand how the measures they take to shore up certainty, usually by fixing the price of something, actually create the uncertainty for the investor that repels capital."

--Russell Napier. The Asian Financial Crisis 1995–98 

Shall we say that via a number of measures central banks have been indirectly fixing the price of credit, and influencing the price of stocks, for many years now?

Have a great day!
Marty