21 March 2011

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts


Big gains on thin volumes. Stocks are held by weak hands.

It could go higher, but I do not believe this is an investable market.
Musical chairs for the nimbly positioned is more like it perhaps.

Hard to tell where things will go when the Banks are pumping up.

The markets were firmly in the United States of Amnesia today, sloughing off all the bad news in Japan, the Middle East, and with sovereign defaults.  But there was an 'edge' to the trade, with the wise guys keeping one hand on their wallet and a clear path to the door.


US Dollar Intermediate and Long Term Charts



A weak chart yes, but a burial would likely be premature.

Currencies notoriously overshoot. A clean break of 71 and we'd be out of Kansas, Toto, and into some brave new world.

Still, if the buck wishes to gather itself together, it might well do so soon. Or better yet, the yen and euro must weaken, because the DX index is a primarily a mirror of their own relative positions.



Japan Background Radiation Levels By Prefecture




Updates to this report are available here.
"Updated on March 21, 2011 21:20 (JST)(Japan Standard Time) nGy/h (nano- Grays per hour)Realtime radiation data collected via the System for Prediction of Environment Emergency Dose Information(SPEEDI) These Results are the maximum values of the space those rate distributions shown from local governments in the latest updated date and time.

Not surprisingly, Miyagi , Fukushima and Ishikawa are completely N/A, as every single reading is Under Survey, may be unavailable sensors because of Tsunami (or maybe censored?)."

Background radiation comes from many sources, including medical x-rays, radon and cosmic rays as the usual suspects. Radon is a decay product of the uranium series, and decays by emitting an alpha particle. The direct parent of Radon is Radium, which emits gamma and alpha particles. Radon gas has different levels of concentration in buildings and can vary considerably.

In the cases from around the world, in normal areas, the dose rates were less than 100 nano Grays per hour (0.01 milli rem).


Those in Japan who can take reliable radiation readings and report them to a central independent source can do so here.

Net Asset Value of Certain Precious Metals Trusts and Funds