an tSionna {07.20.11}

Market had a good day yesterday.  Three reasons listed for the rally were 1) good earnings reports, 2) Anticipation of Apple's results {They were great, the stock flew in after hours trading and will likely be higher this morning} and 3) a sense of movement on the budget ceiling debate.  I would also add that on a very short term basis the market was oversold going into yesterday.

What this has done is basically take us back to the higher end of that trading range we seem to discuss all of the time here on this blog.  Corporate earnings are likely to at least provide some level of support for stocks at least in the short term, but very little seems to indicate that the market at this juncture is setting itself up for a major break out or break down.  Anything of course can happen and we have our gameplan for most market eventualities but probability indicates that stocks will continue to be volatile and in our opinion likely to be range bound till later this summer or early in the fall.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.  Long AAPL in certain client accounts.  AAPL is also a major component in certain ETFs that we own for both clients and personal accounts.

And one final thought on APPL courtesy of the The Big Picture:  "{APPL} now sits on over $76 Billion of cash and long-term securities, which equates to around $83 per share. We read somewhere that Apple could almost purchase RIMM with just the increase in its cash position this quarter."

**No positions in RIMM but it is also a component of ETFs we own in both clients and personal accounts.