Rally Fades Into Close; Wall Street is Full of Bull

A momentous gap up open - all part of the arbitrage plan for scraping money on quadruple options expiration - finished the rally which began on Thursday, as usual, based upon nothing but "sentiment" and, of course, those computer algos which buy, buy, buy.

As stated here the past two days, any rallies under the current climate will be sharp and short-lived. Consider this one over, as the rally faded by half into the close.

Cheerleading CNBC was flashing a "best two-day Dow rally since December" headline, which is somewhat sad in a journalistic sense, since the NASDAQ was down nearly 4% for the week and the Dow and S&P finished the week with losses in the 1.5% area.

Dow 11,858.52, +83.93 (0.71%)
NASDAQ 2,643.67, +7.62 (0.29%)
S&P 500 1,279.20, +5.48 (0.43%)
NYSE Composite 8,116.40, +51.54 (0.64%)

Advancing issues defeated decliners, 4575-1915. NASDAQ new highs: 49; new lows: 42. That snaps a six day winning streak for new lows. On the NYSE, new highs beat new lows, 49-17. That means new highs have been better than new lows 4 of the past 7 days. Volume was particularly high today, due in large part to options expiration.

NASDAQ Volume 2,652,983,000
NYSE Volume 5,778,696,000

Crude oil fell 35 cents on the NYMEX, to $101.07, now that the UN has offered to stop the indiscriminate killing of his own people by forces loyal to president and lunatic-in-chief, Khadaffi.

Gold got back on track, gaining $11.90, to $1,416.10. Silver caught a bid as well, up 80 cents, to $35.06.

Expect more volatility until the conditions on the ground at Japan's disabled nuclear facility is either better explained by Japanese authorities or the situation somehow settled. It is still a very dangerous overhang to all risk assets, which is why gold, silver and goods are still safe bets.