EB Watch List Update Report

MARKET NOTE: Dear Members: Here we are at week's end with the Dow and S&P lower and the NASDAQ flat. I want to point out that today is the third Friday of the month when a boatload of options expire. This can sometimes skew the picture. But one thing hasn't change; all of the major indexes are extremely stretched as we head into a three day weekend. In fact the NASDAQ is the most overbought of the major indexes with stochastics in the mid 90's and a RSI close to 80. The VIX settled down yesterday but its back over both its 20 and 50 day moving averages as traders are reminded that the recent rally could be petering out for a while. The S&P continues to try to hold in the 2340 range. So far selling has not been that deep. But if we do see selling pick up later the S&P could easily revisit the 2320 range. Right now there's really nothing standing out that supports a move higher but hope for some changes in the tax structure that could potentially boost the bottom line of corporate America. But so far that has been quite vague with traders getting a bit restless; they prefer to see something of substance. Very interesting is the cooling in government bond yields in spite of the rhetoric that the Fed is looking to raise interest rates sooner rather than later. It appears that not everyone is convinced that the economy is strong enough to support a raise anytime soon. It will be interesting to see if traders are willing to hold their long positions into the long holiday weekend, especially with uncertainty looming. I still don't see any reason to be aggressively long here; we need more selling to make getting long tempting. If the selling does pick up at some point I could see the S&P testing that 2320 level and not far below that the 20 day moving average, now at 2308. To the upside the bar has been set with 2351 the recent all time high. Best to go slow into the long weekend and revisit come next Tuesday. KEY EARNINGS REPORTS Companies reporting earnings today (February 17) include: AC.TO, B, CPB, CQH, CTB, DE, FNMA, FLR, SJM and MCO Companies reporting earnings Tuesday (February 21) include: FSLR, FDP, GPC, HLS, HSIC, HD, M, MDT, MORN, NEM, PZZA, VRSK, WMT and WLL ADDITIONS TO WATCH LISTS: As a reminder, please note that we have updated the Candidate Tracker, including some new additions that could become high reward to risk trading candidates at some point. No alerts will be coming out today with the market so stretched. Will revisit Tuesday. BRIEF COMMENTS ON SELECT WATCH LIST STOCKS: SHORTS: None at this time LONGS: Large Cap Watch List None at this time Mid Cap Watch List None at this time Small Cap Watch List None of this time DELETIONS FROM OUR WATCH LISTS: None at this time I want to wish everyone a long, restful weekend and I will be back Tuesday morning with my EB Watch List Update Report. At your service, John Hopkins EarningsBeats