Review U.S. stocks were little changed as a lower-than- estimated profit forecast from FedEx Corp. over-shadowed gains in technology shares before Apple Inc.’s release of the iPad tablet computer in China. Fed-Ex, the second-biggest U.S. package-shipment company, lost 3.8 percent. Apple gained 2.4 percent to an all-time high of $276.57 and technology stocks advanced the most among 10 industries in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The S&P 500 gained 0.1 percent to 1,122.25 at 4:30 p.m. in New York after dropping as much as 0.6 percent.
Strategy Looking ahead, we are expecting a volatile trading ses-sion due to quadruple witching with increased volumes as a result. However, the added volume is expected to create noisy/choppy conditions rather than improved trading opportunities. We predict a consolidation of the recent rally favoring a long bias after the break-out of the 1,130.00 handle. On the economic calendar, we have CPI and Consumer Confidence that may add some short-term volatility. We are expecting a better reading than the previous two for the Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment as we saw some improve-ments in the U.S. macroeconomic picture in the last couple of weeks. This may help the S&P 500 to reach our target at 1,137.75
