I had high hopes for Monday’s trade when I said “Are enough traders home from their holidays to make for good trading Monday? That’s a close call in my opinion; however, there just may be enough scheduled economic data releases, including the Fed, to make our first day of 2012 a good one.”

Sadly, it was not a good trading day; volume was still low; volatility was non-existent; and news was plentiful but the entire intra-day range was less than 10-points. 100% of the day’s gains were put in at the open – it was all done on Globex.

The ISM manufacturing report in the morning was good, but not good enough to extend the huge gains of the pre-open session. Consensus for this report was for a reading of 53.2, but the actual number was 53.9. A reading above 50.0 indicates an expanding manufacturing sector.

Some analysts had expected this good reading because it was the report that covered the end of the year. And what’s important about that are the many expiring corporate tax incentives and credits of 2011 that businesses made sure they received by bringing production forward. Here are a few; Credit for Construction of New Energy Efficient Homes, New Markets Tax Credit, 15 Year Straight Line Depreciation, 100% Bonus Depreciation, and many more. They have now expired.

In other news, the USSA is now officially a banana republic. As of today, the US Treasury admits that it owes more than 100% of the USSA’s GDP in debt. To be specific, our admitted-to debt to GDP ratio is now 100.3%...not including the $100+ trillion in unfunded liabilities that the government refuses to count, yet refuses to cut.

Trade well and follow the trend, not the so-called “experts.”

Larry Levin
Founder & President- Trading Advantage