When Great News Doesn't Help

After the market closed today, tech bellwether Apple, Inc. announced not just great earnings, but Oh My God blowout earnings. And how did the market react after hours? Well, both Apple and the NASDAQ fell. GLOBEX is down too. When stocks soften on amazingly great earnings, that's a good sign for us ursine types.

Some indexes pushed to lifetime highs intraday today, but ran out of steam. I do not see any sensational, obvious, the-world-is-coming-to-an-end type pattern. If the market falls, it's going to do so simply because there are no more Greater Fools. As for the S&P 500, shown below, it needs to break below 1,400 before things get interesting.


The Russell 2000 seems to be consolidating right now. I am hoping the current consolidation is similar to the prior one, both of which are shown in light blue highlighting here.


And check out the Transports - aren't trendlines amazing? The prices did a perfect about-face.


My AMLN short - so far, so good. It's down to $40 in after-hours trading. This is a sharp looking graph.


Bear Stearns has had an ungodly amazing run. Again, this isn't a slam-dunk bearish pattern, but more of a "this is stretched to the max" situation. But some maxes can out-max themselves, as we painfully know.


The same logic holds true for Goldman Sachs.


I rarely mention Nvidia, but puts on this stock could benefit greatly from any general downturn in tech stocks, given its huge runup.


Lastly, a suggestion for a buy (or calls)......Oil Services (OIH). My view is that the drop in crude prices has had its run. Take a good look at how strong volume has been recently, in the midst of the stock consolidating in the upper 120s. Stop-loss price on this one would be $125.80, in my opinion.