Stock Market Blog -Jun 17th

The market rallied again this week, making it two in a row. Events in Europe over this weekend (Greece election), along with Egypt elections, a G20 meeting, and a Fed meeting, all will make for a very busy market next week.

New all time highs: 
ATHN DG DIS DLTR EQIX EXPE FDO PETM PGN ROST QCOR SO UA WFM
All time lows:  PCX

Pops: 
Drops:  NOK

Next week: Economic reports

Earnings reports from FDX and ORCL

Market Commentary

The market downtrend may have reversed for now, though this coming week has multiple events which can easily cause a change in direction. When there are so many news events pending, it's best to stay on the sidelines, or maybe sell some volatility in the options market. We saw similar volatility in May and June of 2011 (below). We could see the rally continue before we hit earnings season in July.

Last week's call for a rally into options expiration worked out well too!

This week's charts:
Weekly Unemployment claims
S&P 500 -another rally next week?
OptionsMakeSense -trade with high probabilities

Commodities/Futures (charts):
Oil was mostly unchanged, closing near $84.03
Natural Gas rallied, closing near $2.47
Gold was up, closing near $1628
The 30 year Bond was mostly unchanged, closing near $150.22
The US Dollar was down a bit, closing near 81.60

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Short-Term Gold Options Get Physical
Natural Gas Prices Surge Over Surprise Outlook
G20 leaders to meet in shadow of Europe crisis
Greeks Will Vote 'With Emotions' as World Watches