Missed it By THAT Much!

Okay, so I missed the breakout by one day. After the great results on Wednesday afternoon and post-market announcements by IBM and EBAY, I thought Thursday would be the BIG DAY. So, what did we get? One measly point on the DOW. Some big breakout day. Maybe just a breather for big things to come.

I have been pointing to today for a couple of weeks. Today is the day for Citibank to announce earnings. It started looking good for Citi a couple days ago as its price starting creaping up. Great insight, or leaked information? Who knows, but good news is usually working into the price before the news is official.

So, this morning the news is out. It isn't stunningly great and was a loss of $1 per sahre, but is apparently good enough. New CEO Viktor Pankrit said the credit markets have become much more liquid and Citi is able to move its paper now. He is confident in their future. Citi is up to over $26 in the pre-market, up from around $20 on March 19 (the BSC bottom day). It can move up with a loss and a small miss because many traders were short figuring that Citi was going to zero.

Google also announced much better than anticipated earnings this AM. GOOG is another market leader, like it or not. It is now considered a metric on the economy since a large percentage of corporate advertising budgets has moved to Google. What is good for GOOG is good for the economy.

These two stories, along with other better news and a generally more positive vibe on Wall Street means a good day is coming (the day I thought would come yesterday!!) The good news is improving the case for the end of the bear. The S&P500 is now above its 50 day moving average. As it continues to move above its 100 and 200 day averages, the price action creates a floor for traders. Averages that at one time were ceilings become foundations. The critical psychological level for S&P is 1400. It could go through that today on a big rally.

We also are now 18 days out from the turn in the VIX signal (breaking below its 100 day moving average on March 31). The further out we go, the stronger that signal is. If you look at charts going back a couple decades, the market never turns on this signal when it is two month long (VIX is below its 100 day average for that length of time).

I think we will all be a lot happier (financially and hopefully otherwise) at the end of today.