E Market Briefing For Friday, April 28

Washington ‘and’ North Korean ‘stonewalling’ for sure are contributing to ‘tension on the tape’ as we approach another politically stressed, as well as militarily-daunting, weekend. However, market performance may vary as a result of new hype emanating from a few FANG-type earnings, viewed by of course the cheerleaders, as being ‘red-hot’.

Of course strong Quarterly results (above conservative guidance that we’ve suggested many companies were using so they could meet-or-exceed with little trouble) don’t create a hot-streak; they reward those who bought many months ago primarily; with any entering ‘after-the-fact’ exposed to rising risk though very few analysts or pundits will acknowledge that until after the run.

Whether it’s Alphabet (GOOGL) or Amazon (AMZN) or others, you’ve got a bit of fuel for resumption of blow-off characteristics. Notice that the move is not particularly broad, and that here and there hints of breadth separation (between the core big-cap leaders and the also-ran) starts to appear. We’ll not dignify the ridiculous argument about which of those two above are the ones to buy; as neither is a particular value now, or especially at near-term higher prices.

Same might be said about Apple (AAPL), where nobody will address the market-share deterioration in China for-instance; although I’ve never been bearish on Apple for other than short-term pullbacks, in over 15 years. (Yes we had two great shorts and a few great long ideas on Apple; for traders; while for investors buying the purges was the idea; and like now, we’d not buy into surges for any of these stocks; and lighten-up into others doing so, if one needs to build cash to take advantage of serious correction risks.

In the short-run (daily) traders are focused on these ‘big Quarters’ for such stocks, and not the overall micro OR macro conditions beyond impact these near-term so-called leaders have. Perhaps they might glance at what they’ll now dismiss as ‘old-tech’ companies; like Microsoft’s (MSFT) revenue miss or Intel’s (INTC) softer revenue. Yes stocks will go opposite knee-jerk first reactions, but that’s not the point. It’s not bargain day with May on the way.