Almost all the sectors of the market are down except for healthcare which is holding on. The commodities fall have been pretty extreme. Corn finally rallied. Now that the pricing pressure on inflation is starting to go down like food and gas, the Fed is talking about raising rates which will help the falling dollar which in this bloggers opinion is still in a downtrend regardless of what the fed does. A rising dollar will probably drive down oil a little more spurring a false sense of recovery. But many gas analyst are calling for an uptick of gas into August and September. The market has the catalyst of earnings at this time but as the weeks go on, the catalyst will go back to macro economic factors and seeing the unemployment claims rising – we can see the economy is waning not stablizing. The main factor goes back to real estate prices, once it stabilizes, we are in the clear. But there are many factors stopping real estate from stablizing. One, rates are going up. Two, wealth destruction from equity declines and real estate declines. Three, inflation. Four, lack of credit – did you notice every one exiting mortgage lending and lines of credit loans (and no, we cannot buy a house on a credit card). Five, the savings rates for Americans are negative. The fact is Americans don’t have enough money to buy our homes until the prices drop more. That’s the final conclusion and that will not turn any time soon. But the market will continue to rally until earnings end it seems.

An interesting note is that natural gas hit a major low today. 33% correction hitting resistance levels. There may be a trade here in natural gas. Taking a look at the chart, natural gas has correct much more than regular gas from the chart.  But we have to keep in mind that natural gas has gone up as significantly.  This chart compares the natural gas etf (UNG) and gas etf (USO).

UNG hit a low of 41.70 today with the natural gas hitting $9 which is support. There may be a lot of volatility but at least for the short term, natural gas looks to go up. Next post will feature good healthcare ETFs that may be helpful for the rest of the year.

An interesting note is that there seems to be a huge short interest in GRMN as I was not able to short shares today. Just an FYI.

Disclosure: Long CLF, CHK (increased position), Short: GME