Monday Market Momentum (or Lack Thereof!)

It’s all about the Nikkie and the Fed this week . I mentioned last week that we had to assume there is a 1,000-point tether between the Dow and the Nikkie and, in general, we can usually count on that relationship holding and we had several day (overnight)  trades on EWJ that went well using that logic.  Today we should get a proper test of our connection as the two indexes are reaching their maximum gap once again with the Nikkei closing this morning at 9,572, 1,081-points below Friday’s Dow close at 10,653.  Europe seems to think it’s the Nikkei that needs to catch up to the Dow as the EU markets jumped 1.5% this morning - pretty much gapping up at the open and holding it through 8am, so far - that will lead us to go back in on EWJ for a catch-up trade if our markets make a similar move (with our target levels as easy indicators of a "real" rally). Maybe Europe is right as the Yen was jammed all the way up to 85.8 to the dollar in our 3am trade and only fell back to 85.55 before being turned back up.  Both China indexes jumped 0.5% this morning as investors were happy with the Central Government’s decision to order 2,087 companies in 18 sectors to shut down obsolete plants in a decision aimed at streamlining industries that were polluting, energy-intensive and had excess capacity.  This kind of makes me laugh at the talking heads on TV, whos think they are being clever when they call GM " Government Motors " as any fool reading the papers can see what real government intervention looks like - and the investors in China LOVE IT!  " This is very good news for the steel and cement sectors, as it will foster the development of these industries ," said Chen Jinren at Huatai Securities. Japan will close for a vacation next week and, of course, we have the FOMC rate decision tomorrow.  While no one is expecting a rate change, EVERYONE is now expecting some form of quantitative easing to pump more money into the US economy and we moved on and ignored Meredith Whitney on Friday afternoon - on the same day that we ignored some terrible jobs news : China is not just managing their economy, they are managing ours as they risk their own growth in order to pull up the slack we were beginning to see as Factory Orders tapered off in July.  China is lagging behind a…