Turning the corner?

Yesterday was 13th day of the month, a day that most people around the world regardless of religions associates it to bad luck. 13th day falls on Friday makes it even more scary, heck - the market closed higher for all three key indices 4 days in a row - Dow, S & P 500 and Nasdaq. Have we overcame the fear demons inside us and are we turning the corner?

This turnaround was sparked by Citigroup on March 10, so called leaked CEO internal memo telling his employees that they are profitable for the first two months of 2009. Then came GE AAA status was stripped to AA+ stable which was not that bad. Fitch jumped on bandwagon and stripped Berkshire Hathaway AAA to AA+.

On the economy front, the US retail sales drop for first two months not as bad as most thought. Is consumer spending stabilize?. U.S. consumer confidence unexpectedly rose to 56.6 surveyed in early March which most expect it to drop to 55.0

1. Citigroup and JP Morgan claimed to be profitable. Citi says they no longer require injection from the government.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSHN4o87.gto

2. Fitch downgraded Berkshire Hathaway
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aMPmZMzZ.V30

3. US retail sales drop not as feared
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/12/business/13econ.php

4. U.S. consumers confidence unexpectedly rose
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/03/13/afx6164773.html

There was plenty of articles talking about capitulation in October and November but that same group was very gun shy. This is understandable because the market proved them wrong. Plus we have not seen anything rise above 20% from the recent low yet - Dow Theory, trend following or Elliot wave group have not seen any confirmation yet. If Dow is able to close above 7500, the momentum group will fuel the rally further. For now, I am hoping the group that relying on valuation or simply less bad news will push it beyond 7500 to spark a bull run or bear-market rally or what ever we want to call it. March Faber says, based on oversold condition, this rally will carry us through till end of April. Why end of April? Sell in May and go away again?

I hope to spend sometime to talk about Malaysia stock market this weekend because it has been very uninspiring especially after the second stimulus already been announced. I am seeing a few of my favorite stocks on my monitoring radar are being lelong.