Today's Trading - Why the 200-Day Moving Average Matters Near-Term

Friday’s trading will likely be hampered early by relatively weak economic data and more bad news from corporate America, namely Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS). However, investors will want to keep their eye on how we close the day and on how well 200-day moving average support holds for forward direction for the rest of this month. Unfortunately, we still have the European Central Bank meeting and the Greek vote to worry about, so that underlying risk aversion should hold through January. That means that what has worked, namely gold as we suggested at the start of the year, should continue to work. What has failed so far, high-beta and momentum stocks and energy, threatens to continue to fail over the near-term. See my report on the market here.

Security	01-16-15	YTD
SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY)	-0.9%	-3.2%
SPDR Dow Jones (NYSE: DIA)	-0.6%	-2.7%
PowerShares QQQ (Nasdaq: QQQ)	-1.3%	-3.2%
SPDR Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD)	+2.5%	+6.0%
iPath S&P Crude Oil (NYSE: OIL)	-5.1%	-14.2%
PIMCO Total Return (Nasdaq: BOND)	+0.5%	+1.6%
PowerShares DB US $ Bullish (NYSE: UUP)	+0.3%	+1.2%
iPath S&P VIX ST Futures (NYSE: VXX)	+2.9%	+16.6%