sentiment

The U.S. Dollar is up against most major currencies as investors have shifted back toward risk aversion. Demand for lower risk is helping to boost the Japanese Yen while oversold conditions are helping the British Pound.

Confidence that the European Union, Greece situation is close to a resolution is helping to drive up demand for risky assets. This is helping to boost the U.S. stock indices ahead of the opening. Traders are also becoming more confident in corporate earnings reports because of the recent improvements in the economy.

An easing of investor risk sentiment is helping to support equity price overnight. Early in the trading session, stock markets followed through to the upside following Friday’s strong finish and talk of a possible resolution of the fiscal problems plaguing the Euro Region.

Investors dumped stocks late in the trading session on Friday as sentiment shifted toward less risky assets. The combination of a stronger Dollar, monetary tightening in China and a proposal by Obama to end financial institution prop trading weighed heavily on traders this week.

A drop in global equity markets is helping to boost the Dollar as traders shift out of higher yielding assets. The Dollar started out weaker overnight as traders returned after a U.S. holiday, but it turned higher on technical factors and surprise economic data from competing nations. Shortly before the opening, the Dollar is trading higher versus most major markets except the British Pound.

Stock Index Futures are trading lower overnight as investors are shifting out of higher risk assets. Concerns that a tighter monetary policy in China will lead to a slow down in the Chinese economy is encouraging traders to lighten up on higher yielding assets. Traders are also being cautious ahead of today’s earnings reports. Momentum has slowed down despite higher prices this week.

With this week marking the end of the quarter, it isn't unreasonable to expect some screwy market activity. Between investors' profit-taking and advisors' window-dressing, the market can get so confused it forgets which way is up.

From a technical perspective could the market be following the path of past sentiment cycles? This post details technical and fundamental data that attempts to detail where the market is relative to past cycles.

Just over a week ago, I wrote about the Central GoldTrust (NYSE: GTU) and how its premium suggested a little too much bullishness toward precious metals.

It's short-term stuff, but gold did keep pulling back from $940 at the time to $900 before its latest bounce attempt. What happened on that bounce? Even more bullishness, according to an all-time high GTU premium of 33% last Thursday...

"It's different this time" is perhaps one of the most dangerous utterances in the history of investing—one that seems to routinely presage a major reversal in market direction.

Stock market investing - Marc Lichtenfeld from the Smart Profits Report believes that energy projects would receive nearly $40 billion worth of federal funds under the Obama Stimulus Plan.

After three weeks of quiet trading, a wave of selling jolted investors back to reality Wednesday. VIX gains 4.83, or 13 percent, for its best gain since Dec. 1.

Contrary-minded investors might find some reassurance from the fact that the VIX, the sentiment surveys, and the overall action in the options market suggest that bearishness and pessimism has reached levels considerably higher than at the market bottom following the 49 percent decline in the S&P 500 from March 24, 2000 to October 9, 2002.

TradingMarkets.com wanted to note all the reactions they usually see at near term lows are being put in place. I did not say bear market bottom... and nothing is 100%. First off they have a great image of the TIME MAGAZINE cover.