Keystone's Key Dates and Market Movers

1.      POMO Pumps:  QE2 market pumps from 10:15 AM to 11 AM each day favoring market bulls.

2.      Preannouncement Season:  Time for CEO’s to visit the confessional during these final days of Q1, companies will announce any bad news ahead of the earnings releases starting in April.  The amount of bad news, or lack thereof, will affect the markets accordingly.

3.      Japan Quake-Tsunami-Nuclear Disaster:  Markets remain at the mercy of the news feed until final resolution is achieved with the nuclear reactors.  Additionally, Japan is performing policy manipulation and currency intervention to handle the markets and will probably intervene to stop the dollar/yen from falling under 80 with a goal to drive the yen weaker to dollar/yen 85-86.

4.      Continuing Geopolitical Events such as Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, N. Korea:  Dollar bullish and equity bearish.  Gold bullish.  Bahrain is the big worry, this will seriously affect oil supply.  Libya, not a big deal concerning oil, Saudi’s can easily step up production, but now the U.S. is involved in another military event.

5.      State and Muni Crisis:  Muni’s should experience pain first.  Muni’s rely on State funds.  Many State budgets turn over in June and July, only two months away. Colleges relied on State funds.

6.      Europe Crisis Continues:  Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, the PIIGS.  Italy’s close ties with Libya are strained which may expose Italy’s bad paper. Portugal will need a bailout any week now; leaders meeting 3/24/11 and 3/25/11.  Weaker euro=stronger dollar index=weaker U.S. equities.

7.      ECB Rate Hike:  ECB bluster about a rate hike 4/7/11.  Trichet raised rates July 2008—exactly at the wrong time—when the commodities bubble popped. Is Trichet calling a top again?

8.      China Property Bubble and China Contagion:  When it pops, anytime now, it will be huge and extremely negative on global markets, more than likely causing contagion in Asia and elsewhere.

9.      PBOC, China Rate Hikes:  First hike 10/19/10, 25 bips; second hike Christmas 12/25/10, 25 bips; third hike at end of China New Years on 2/8/11.  Expect the hikes to continue, a minimum of two more are targeted by June, so two hikes within the next 14 weeks.  China just raised reserve requirements again so they typically would wait a few days before raising rates.  The hike may be 50 rather than 25 bips which would shock the markets.  There were 67 days between the first and second hike, 45 days between the second and third hike, adding 45 days to 2/8/11 targets 3/25/11 for the hike.  Hikes have occurred October, December, and February so that pattern would point to early April for the hike.  First three hikes occurred between the 8^th and the 25^th days of the months, we are now in that window.  An educated guess points at a China rate hike within the coming days.  The rate hike will cause commodities to sell off.

10.  India, Brazil and other Emerging Market Rate Hikes:  Same effects as China rate hikes, commodities will sell off, although the China rate hikes carry a lot more clout.

11.  Congress:  Market bullish when not in session, market bearish when in session.

12.  Strategic Oil Reserve:  The talk of using the reserve is moot since about 7 million bbls over next few months will be drained for renovations anyway; say one million bbls per month oil supply will hit the market now into Fall.

13.  3/24/11 and 3/25/11:  EU Council Meeting. Summit of European leaders to agree on measures for debt crisis.  Euro weakness=dollar strength and visa versa.

14.  3/25/11:  GDP and Consumer Sentiment

15.  4/7/11: Potential ECB rate hike, or bluster?

16.  4/8/11:  Budget Crisis Deadline extended from 3/4/11, and then 3/11/11.  Government shutdown?

17.  4/26/11 and 4/27/11: FOMC two-day meeting, QE3 announcement?  FOMC meeting days are typically flat to up.

18.  5/1/11 and on:  California financial decisions.  Will these decisions spook the country?

19.  5/15/11: Eclipse Sell-off Technique targets this time frame as a potential large market selloff area.

20.  June 2011:  EU Bank Stress Test Results.

21.  June 2011:  QE2 Ends.

22.  6/15/11:  Bradley Turn date.

23.  6/22/11:  Bradley Turn date.

24.  7/15/11: Eclipse Sell-off Technique targets this time frame as a potential large market selloff area.

25.  7/29/11 and 7/30/11:  Major Bradley Turn date.

26.  2012:  China chooses a new Premier, smooth transition?