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Strategies & Market Trends : Ask Vendit Off-Topic Questions -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Vendit™ who wrote (2747)	12/20/2004 8:10:56 AM
From: Walkingshadow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8752

Thanks Reid. Looks like NY will open up this morning. Asian markets finished up on the day, and European markets are trading up pretty strongly. Index futures are up, the dollar is down again, gold is up, but oil futures are trading down below $46/barrel. Although they are currently down on the session, oil futures are testing resistance right now, with technical buy signals in place: futuresource.com But there are two other things that suggest oil may rally. 1. More trouble in Iraq this morning. Doesn't involve oil, but everybody knows they will be targeting oil if they can (and it seems there are not a lot of restrictions on where they can strike). This news could stoke those fears again: << Bombs in Karbala, Najaf kill 67 -- CNN Deadly car bombings on Sunday hit the Iraqi Shiite Muslim holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, killing 67 people, officials said. In Najaf, a suicide car bomber plowed his vehicle into a funeral procession and exploded it just yards from the city's Imam Ali shrine, killing at least 51 people, the head of Iraqi security operations said. >> 2. A cold wave is hitting most of the country now: <<Temperatures plunge in East as freeze heads for Florida -- USA Today A mass of frigid air from Arctic Canada and Alaska moved across the northern Plains and the East on Sunday, dropping snow on hills and mountains from northern Alabama to Virginia and on some lower elevations from there north across Maine. As the cold air moved south on Sunday, heavy snow fell on some places from Indiana to New York and Pennsylvania, where some areas received up to 6 inches. Parts of West Virginia received up to 4 inches and 25 mph winds pushed the wind-chill reading to near 20 below in places... With this first real blast of winter weather across the country, watch for potential interest/volatility in heating and crude oil futures. >> Something else this morning that looks ominous... maybe a harbinger of things to come next year? <<White House sharply reduces expectations for job growth - WSJ According to the WSJ, the Bush administration has significantly scaled back expectations of US job growth, reflecting continued hesitancy on the part of employers and robust growth in output per worker. The White House said it expects nonfarm employment to rise 2.1 mln next year to an annual avg of 133.4 mln. In Feb, it had projected 3.6 mln more jobs in 2005. To achieve its new projection, employment growth should avg 175K a month in 2005, according to the forecast, which was jointly developed by the Council of Economic Advisers, the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget. The administration also lowered its long-term employment projections, forecasting an average annual increase of 1.8 mln for the next 6 years, down from 2 mln in the Feb projections.>> T