For those who have not been actively watching the story, the volcano in southern Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier has continually sent ash into the air for several days. The eruption under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland has thrown up a several mile high plume of ash which has ebbed and flowed yet not totally abated after more than two weeks of volcanic activity. It is located under Iceland's fifth largest glacier and has erupted only five times since the area was settled in the 9th century. Eyjafjallajokull has a 2.5 km-wide volcanic crater which is completely covered in ice. Quoting from a Reuters story, "Fissure-fed lava flows occur on its eastern and western flanks of the so-called stratovolcano, which is built up from alternating layers of ash, lava and rocks ejected by earlier eruptions. When the volcano began erupting in late March it opened a 500-m fissure producing lava fountains along the vent. The ash cloud has been formed through a process called fragmentation which occurs in several stages. First, magma travelling under pressure through underground conduits is broken up into pieces by expanding gases. As pressure decreases closer to the surface, the magma turns into fine volcanic ash which breaks into even smaller particles when it makes contact with glacial ice on the surface of the crater. The fine dust melds with steam rising from the crater to form a dark, billowing plume. "It's like a soda bottle when you take the top off," said Icelandic vulcanologist Armann Hoskuldsson, describing what happens to magma as it travels to the surface." Now, there are two main over and above the fact that this type of thing is fascinating that I bring up this matter much less quote the process for exactly what is occurring scientifically at the present time. First, many potential business stories don't actually appear in the business section of the newspaper. Instead, stories such as this tend to be buried on page C12 of many newspapers (or not in the top 50 stories in the news on Google News) when they first happen or hopefully get a mention in the Science section of some of the major papers. Yet, what has occurred has been a complete halt in air travel for northern Europe for many days now. After a few highly publicized plane interactions with ash plumes in the 1980s, airlines have generally agreed that the most prescient course of action regarding ash plumes is to stay far away from them. For instance, all four engines of a British Airways flight shut down when flying though the ash of an Indonesian eruption in 1982. In 1989, a KLM jet flew through a cloud of ash in Alaska and suffered the same fate. Both flights were able to restart their engines, but only after losing more than 10,000 feet of altitude else many people would have perished. Well, the wind patterns have taken the ash high into the sky throughout northern Europe resulting in a stream of almost invisible particles and rocks which has hated air travel. The estimated cost is over $200 million a day according to many news outlets and this could go on for awhile. This type of action is not factored in to broader markets so this and other types of events can cause issues for the equity markets. Second, day traders have a way of finding stocks to trade on based on disasters. For instance, many avian flu companies became very active stocks during the avian flu scare as did the stocks of companies which made anthrax anecdotes several years back. So, while this is not a domestic issue, if it was, shares of environmental-based businesses as well as clean-up stocks much less airlines would be active. Thus, as you skim through the news report (or newspaper), don't just check the score of the Yankees game as well as the business news...read the whole paper/news site because you just may find something that can help your trading.
Markets in Asia were generally higher overnight with Hong Kong up 1%. European bourses also had a nice bounce after Wall Street’s rally with most indexes up about 1%. Commodities are coming back too with oil and gold notching nice gains. Currencies are quiet. Futures are nicely higher state-side on the heels of a good report from GS. For today, look for the strength to maintain itself as GS continues to shake the cobwebs off. Focus on the myriad of earnings play as well as relative strength/weakness plays.
Reiterating-
If the whole story is not there -
If something is good, assume either a short thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified.
If something is bad, assume either a buy thru unchanged or an A-B-A2 (preferably to the downside in a downside market and the upside in an upside market) based on direction of the market unless specified-
Good- The following stocks have good news and/or a strong technical pattern
ZION- decent earnings
ARRY- joint project announced with NVS
UNIS, WYNN- featured on “Mad Money” last night
ATHR- good earnings
STLD- decent earnings
MEE- closed near a high after a brokerage upgrade
MON- closed near a high after accelerating its share buyback
CADX- closed near a high
PRK- closed near a high
UNH- decent earnings
COH- decent earnings
GS- good earnings
HOG- good earnings
OMC- good earnings
ETN- good earnings
APH- decent earnings
ITW- decent earnings
Bad-The following stocks have bad news and/or a weak technical pattern
IBM- poor earnings
PKG- poor earnings
WERN- poor earnings
ICUI- poor earnings
MMR- closed near a low after posting earnings
IOC- closed near a low
EAT- poor earnings
KO- poor earnings
NTRS- poor earnings
JNJ- poor earnings
MTG- earnings and shelf offering
FRX- poor earnings
SVU- poor earnings
HGSI- poor phase 3 trial results of Benlysta
Earnings:
TUES APR 20 BEFORE
AKS AMTD APH
BIIB BJS BK
COH DAL EAT
EDU ETN FRX
GS HOG ITW
JEF JNJ KCI
KO LAB LXK
MI MTB NTRS
OMC PCAR PH
RF STT SVU
UAUA UNH USB
USG WFT
TUES APR 20 AFTER
AAPL ALTR CREE
EW GILD JNPR
NBR NUVA OFG
SNV STX SYK
TPX TSS TUP
VMW YHOO
Good luck today.
Epiphany Trading, LLC
www.epiphanytrading.com
Erik R. Kolodny- Chief Markets Strategist
Brendan P. Byrne- President
Joseph R. McCandless- Managing Partner
D. Timothy Seaquist- Managing Partner
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