In The Cross-Hairs

Traders scrutinized new economic data from Europe and trained their sites on the
relative valuations of currencies. The euro took a thrashing, to the benefit of
the dollar, after an unexpected up-tick in inflation data and the release of
poor earnings results or warnings from closely-watched corporations Unilever and
Royal Philips Electronics. The euro also rose despite unexpectedly German strong industrial production
figures, a sign of weakness. 

This is the third straight day that
euro FX

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and Swiss franc
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futures fell out of Pullback From Low
setups. Both touched down to new-20 day lows, closing .01310 and .0112 lower,
respectively. Euro FX futures met with buying at the previous 20-day low in a swing bounce that Larry Connors identifies as a Turtle Soup, a
setup that occurs on the same day rather than on the following day as in the
Turtle Soup Plus One setups that we track for you daily on the site. 

Yesterday’s US productivity data also played a role as
traders noticed that the US economy may not be in as bad of shape as feared and
that the dollar
may have been too heavily discounted recently 

As suggested in yesterday’s Mid-Day Futures Alert and
futures Market Recap, Japan’s revised Q3 GDP figures came out last night showing
the Asian economy actually contracted rather
than grew (slightly) as the government previously reported. The deteriorating fundamentals of the Japanese yen
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–the
economy actually lapsed into recession– took traders off the buy-side and
the futures closed on their lows and prior pivot defined at .8620. 


Nasdaq 100 futures

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shook off yesterday’s Cisco’s blues, but only
for an hour. The cap in the Naz futures occurred in the 2476 to 2486 band
defined in an intraday Fibonacci update in our new S&P
Futures Price Action Levels
. The NDH1 capped the day at 2479 before tumbling
as many as 117 points (through a limit-down curb level) and closing on the low
of the session for a net loss of 73.50 to 2370.00.

Similarly, the new intraday service from
TradingSubscriptions identified 1356.50 as the potential cap in the March
S&P futures
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, which turned out to be the exact intraday high. This service is available
on a trial basis for $29.95. The Spoos closed down 14.50 at
1335.00. 

Energies pumped up yesterday after Israel elected a
hawkish Prime Minister despised by many Arabs and Palestinians for his actions
as a military commander. His election is seen as raising tensions and the potential for violence in
the Middle East. March crude oil
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,

heating oil

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, and unleaded gasoline
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all
rallied strongly to ascend to the
Momentum-5
List
yesterday (for today’s signal) and continued higher on the first sign
of violence, a bomb blast in Jerusalem, to make good on the new signal.

The stronger dollar hurt gold, sending the April
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contract tanking late in the session to close down 2.7 at a new low
of 262.2. 

March soybeans
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 got crushed after
the US Department of Agriculture reported that supplies are more than ample and
that the Brazilian crop looks large. Beans hit an eight-month low, gapping below
their Pullback From Lows
trigger for a loss of 1 1/4 to 452 1/4. Soymeal
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, from the Implosion-5 List,
also fell 1.9 to 163.5 to a new multi-month low. 

Coffee
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 traded in a narrow range
and closed right at its Turtle Soup Plus One Buy
trigger.

Cocoa
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continued making good on its
Turtle Soup Plus One Sell signal from yesterday, losing an additional 39 to 1005
on profit-taking.