It looked likely one was to see new closing highs for the markets, but afternoon trading kept the party balloons under wraps. There was some technical repair; on-balance-volume of the Dow was back above the bullish mid-line; the MACD of the NASDAQ looks set to bounce off support of its June-July bullish divergence; there was a MACD trigger 'buy' in the semiconductor index after a second day of solid gains - resistance at the 200-day MA awaits; the semiconductor index also gained relative to the NASDAQ 100 - a good sign for bulls. Tech market internals [ $NASI , $NAA50 and $BPCOMPQ ] saw a little improvement with a bullish cross of the 5-day EMA by the $BPCOMPQ . Overall, the tech market internals have not reached overbought levels typical of bull markets - so there is still (technical) room for markets to rise. Given Democrats have control of the House, bruised Republicans can take heart the result should be good for their stock portfolios over the long term....

I am slowly getting back up to speed, so please be patient. Junior arrived on Friday at 8 lbs 6 oz and is doing his best to keep us awake during the night! Monday's gains helped relieve the series of losses markets have experienced over the last few days, but don't expect the big action to hit the markets until the election results are known. The relative lack of volume means the gains can only be considered weakly bullish (although Monday's trading did rank as a technical 'accumulation' day in all indices bar the S&P ). There were bigger changes in supporting tech market internals [ $NASI , $NAA50 and $BPCOMPQ ]; breaks in the 5-day EMAs of the $NASI and $BPCOMPQ - aided by a bearish divergence in the $NAA50 (fewer stocks now support the rally); the break of the June-July bullish divergences of the ultimate oscillator of all three internals; similarly, strengthening of the bearish divergence in the MACDs, although a divergence has yet to develop in the $BP...

Just a quick update. Today, I am getting a lot of search traffic through KIVA Google/Yahoo searches since the site featured on PBS's Frontline . Below is the current status of the 10 loans currently in play. You will notice a couple of them are close to been paid off well inside the deadline for payment. This money will be channeled back into the KIVA system. KIVA is an excellent service; the number of available projects has soared since the days of our first loan (when there were only a handful of projects available). I would strongly recommend anyone considering doing this to do it - its better than charity. P.S. Howard - if you are reading, "Wallstrip" could do a piece on this, maybe as a weekend program??? KIVA

Due to the anticipated arrival of baby Fallon on Friday there will be no update until next week at the earliest. Hopefully the market won't go on a rampage until then!

Markets failed to close yesterday with the vigor necessary to regain lost support from last Thursday. Today, markets drift in aimless fashion, but the Trade Ideas scan was showing a little stronger buying than this time yesterday; today's picks covered a time span of 2 minutes - someone appears to be buying the dips. It was a relatively eclectic mix of 8 picks; two treasury bond funds ( TLT and IEF ), a latin America Index iShares ( ILF ) and Mexico iShares ( EWW ), with a dose of China ( CHA ) and an America staple, Nike ( NKE ). The Latin America Index ( ILF ) was the only pick to manage a bullish cross of its 20-day/50-day MAs over the last 2-months. FTD Group ( FTD ) and RPM Intl ( RPM ) recently suffered bearish crosses in these MAs. In terms of frequency, the treasury bond fund, TLT , took the biscuit at 26 appearances . Long term charts of these picks look a littly iffy. There is a cup-and-handle pattern in the two treasury funds ( TLT and IEF ); use the October low for s...

Markets (so far) have done a decent job atoning for some of Friday's losses. Whether they can regain their breakouts in the last hour of trading remains to be seen. The Trade Ideas scan showed modest buying; the 8 picks covered 5 minutes of time. There was no one dominant stock; AAR Corp ( AIR ) made the most appearances over the course of the day at 24 . Within the time span of the scan (the 5 minutes), Coca Cola Femsa ( KOF ) made 4 appearances ( 20 for the day). Canada iShares ( EWC ) and Scotia Bank ( BNS ) are working through prior bearish crosses in their 20-day and 50-day MAs. AAR Corp ( AIR ) and Coca Cola Femsa ( KOF ) were the only picks to make bullish crosses over this period. Cup-and-handle buyers can look to Canada iShares ( EWC : Buy @ $25.25; Stop loss on $24; Projected target: $30), Coca Cola Femsa ( KOF : Buy: Trigger hit if current level holds into close; Stop loss on $32; Projected target: $42) and to a lesser degree, AAR Corp ( AIR : Buy @ 20-day MA or brea...

Techs made a brief move to new yearly highs, only to reverse by Friday's close. The breakout reversals won't help bulls, but there is plenty of support below. Dr. Joe leads out with some commentary: The DOW was slightly up for the week, but got hit Hard today. A bunch of Eco Data came out and it's conflicting and confusing. For instance... 'Core Consumer Prices' (big inflation factor) increased 2.3% during the third quarter (that's bad?). No, it's Good, because it was down from 2.7% the second quarter. But it's Still Bad, because for the year it's Up to 2.4% which is higher than last year. Also Above the Fed Res' Comfort Zone of 1.5% to 2.0% max. *The important 'GDP' came in low - 1.6% for the third quarter. Way Down from the 2.6% second quarter, causing skepticism about the bull continuing. However, 'Consumer Sentiment' increased from 92 to 96 - Very High. Then Goldman Sachs stated that, 'The Demand for Mother Boards is fall...