What a Week So Far...

GDP turned in worse than expected but slightly better than the last quarter, Jobless Claims is better than expected but all the Dow did was to continue its short term neutral trend without much of an indication of a breakout. The only area of strength so far is in the NASDAQ composite which seemed oblivious to what the Dow and the S&P500 is doing so far as it continues to reach for the sky.

As I have mentioned before, the longer the neutral trend, the more explosive the breakout. Could tomorrow's ISM index be the catalyst needed? Consensus for the ISM index is again a very positive number of 38.3, up from 36.3. Recently, almost all consensus are for more positive numbers as analysts and leaders around the world expect economic recovery by the end of the year. In fact, the Chinese economy has already seen and experienced recovery throughout 2009 so far through a strong consumer market. Indeed, I was walking down the streets of Shanghai lately and I could feel no sense of recession. Consumers are happy and spending like nothing ever happened.