Monday Morning Musings

The market got a brief bounce in early trading on a better than expected economic report, but the enthusiasm has quickly faded, and the Dow is flirting with triple digit declines currently.

The ISM Services Index came in higher than expected at 52.0 (vs. 49.1 consensus), reflecting renewed expansion. This is another good sign for the recession doubters.

Yahoo! (YHOO) has been down as much as -20% this morning after rejecting another raised bid from Microsoft (MSFT), this time for $33. I am not sure what these guys are thinking, as they are unlikely to get another offer that good. But maybe this does bode well for Google (GOOG) as YHOO mgt. may now be more likely to outsource search to GOOG.

Asian markets were mostly higher overnight; oil is surging again, near $119.50; gold is also higher this morning; the 10-year yield is up slightly to 3.86%.

The put/call ratio opened at a fairly low level of 0.79. We are starting to see lower put/call readings as sentiment grows more neutral. This could lead to a pullback in the near-term, as the market has enjoyed a nice rally from the March lows.

long GOOG