A.M. Update

Talk about Changes in Character, I recently published the changes in the averages for 2014 with the Russell 2000 at nearly 0% and the Dow not far behind, distinct changes in character that of course have been accompanied by a "seemingly" contradictory increase in the ROC of price, it's really a different picture watching the market close up every day and stepping back.

The Associated Press reports that the S&P-500 has gone a nearly unprecedented 41 days without a move of more or less than 1% which has not been seen since 1995! I have commented very recently on the very small bodied candles and clusters of Dojis or Stars, gains of +/- 1% use to be common place, not anything VERY exciting in the trading week, they've now become virtually extinct, it's a change in character one cannot and should not ignore, even as volatility was seemingly restored to the market after last week's F_O_M_C and yesterday's retracement of the knee-jerk move in almost all of the ETFs of the major averages.

Overnight US Index futures have been dull, however gold and silver have both come down off their recent 2 and 3 month highs (respectively), hopefully that SLV put  opened yesterday and just under a 10% gain since opened yesterday, will move some more and gold and miners will continue their pullback while giving us important information on the health of both (accumulation on the pullback is what we want to see) as we should be able to pick up GDX/NUGT at better prices after having taken all the gains off the table and then some as we expected a pullback which materialized yesterday in a fairly big way for NUGT, down almost 9% (the remaining open position is still up nearly 36%. There has been some per-market strength in both after some shocking US data was released at 9:30, but they are still both off their highs.

Overnight markets have been trading with a weaker tone and US Index Futures which have been dull overnight, did pick up activity at 8:30 this morning as SPX futures hit the week's lows at $1937.50 upon the release of the final Q1 GDP which came in at a shocking -2.9% on consensus of -1.8% and way off January estimates of +2.6%! Roughly 4 trillion dollars in F_E_D balance sheet expansion (much of which made its way in to the market) has bought the F_E_D a GDP print that is the worst GDP print since Q1 2009!

On GDP, the consumer is dead, consensus of 2.4% for personal consumption was revised from 3.1% all the way down to 1% and we still have inflation! As an interesting aside, since 1947 (when quarterly GDP records began) GDP for a single quarter has never fallen by more than -1.5% without preceding a recession which is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative prints (below 0%).

Also released at 8:30, Durable Goods orders came in at the biggest miss of 2014 at -1%, on a year on year basis the trend is about to go negative which makes you wonder about the F_E_D's full year 2014 GDP forecast.

Index futures are still sitting near the 8:30 a.m low of the week, gold and silver have given up some of their 8:30 bounce gains.

I might look at taking some or all of yesterday's QQQ puts off the table depending on what early action looks like.