Overnight

Overnight risk has stayed in the game, suggesting that our continued bounce theory is still in the game as well, here's ES (S&P E-Mini  Futures) since opening slightly down last night...

It was a slow grind higher after the EU markets opened, the 8:30  release of Retail Sales and the Empire Manufacturing reports came out, the market chose to ramp up on Retail sales which beat, while Empire Manufacturing missed.

Retail Sales:
Released On 4/16/2012 8:30:00 AM For Mar, 2012

	Prior	Consensus	Consensus Range	Actual
Retail Sales - M/M change	1.1 %	0.3 %	0.1 % to 0.7 %	0.8 %
Retail Sales less autos - M/M change	0.9 %	0.6 %	0.4 % to 1.1 %	0.8 %
Less Autos & Gas - M/M Change	0.6 %	0.5 %	0.2 % to 0.9 %	0.7 %

A strong beat in retail sales.

The Empire State Mfg. Survey missed and pretty big.
Released On 4/16/2012 8:30:00 AM For Apr, 2012

	Prior	Consensus	Consensus Range	Actual
General Business Conditions Index - Level	20.21	18.00	10.00  to 22.70	6.56

It would seem the consensus would be the market "chose" to latch on to retail sales, I think the 3C charts suggesting a continued bounce on Friday are more relevant, as mentioned last week, once Wall Street starts a cycle, even a short one, they usually get the market to where they intended, apparently even if it involves having F_E_D embers come out and play the good cop/bad cop depending on which way Wall Street is trying to take the market.

Some of you have heard this story, probably most of you. I use to get internal research reports distributed to a major Wall Street investment bank, I won't tell you how, I wasn't breaking any laws, I wasn't hacking or anything like that, they ended up in my email. I will say they seemed useless until I looked back 6 months later, then they were quite accurate. The punchline is that Wall Street works far out in advance of the market. I have charts showing massive accumulation of homebuilders of all things in 2000 during the tech meltdown. Who in their right mind, after having gone through the tech revolution would have thought housing would lead the next bull market? Wall Street knew and years in advance, making over 5000% on HOV alone.

I can't say I'm surprised by the pre-market ramp in ES futures, I also can't say that I think a very mixed picture between retail sales and the Empire State mfg. survey actually had much to do with it, but that's what the pundits will be saying.

Overnight Spanish yields on their 10-year crossed the 6% mark to 6.15, approaching new record wides. This is not good for the market, despite what the short term may do, you might call it the EU Financial "Sum of all fears".

The EUR/USD has managed to defend $1.30, below $1.30 and risk should fall off fast.

Thursday will be a huge day with multiple EU auctions, I doubt there will be anything positive there, for now, we seem to be back on track.