tentative tuesday

Interesting how the positive housing numbers last night in the US markets resulted in an immediate selloff, to SPX 974, before a sustained push back to the upside to Friday's close.

There are few catalysts (or a combination of) in the upcoming week that could send the market one way or the other, starting today in Asia.

Tuesday:
Hitachi, Canon reports.
Australian Business Confidence numbers.
US Case Schiller Numbers
US Consumer Confidence Numbers
US Richmond Manufacturing Index

Wednesday:
Japanese Retail Numbers
UK Mortgage Approvals.
US Durable Goods
US Beige Book

Thursday:
Japanese Vehicle Production
US Initial Jobless Claims

Friday:
Japanese Jobless Rates
Japanese CPI
US GDP
US Chicago PMI
US NAPM Milwaukee.

Interspread between these Economic reports are earnings from Disney, Sprint Nextel, Time Warner, Tyco, Barrick Gold, Colgate Palmolive, Dow Chemical, Exxon Mobil, Motorola, Office Depot and Mastercard.

Interesting to note most investment banks have now followed Goldman Squid's lead to upgrade their SPX targets for year end to above 1000.

There is also a hearing tonight with the Obama Administration to control and reign in the "speculative" nature of commodity markets, which could have two direct results :-

a) Deleveraging in the commodity markets
b) The revaluation of a premium attached to commodity stocks.

I'm short SPX smalls and waiting patiently for sanity to return.