CLOSING RAMP

Quite a day on the street as rumors of an imminent rate cut bring the DJIA back to flat after being down 200 while crude rising over $2 is completely ignored. NAZ/NDX/RUT were the worst of the major indexes as the tech and small cap value sectors lagged. The DJIA closed -1, NAZ -24 and SPX -4.

Strongest sectors were homies, oils, defense, metals, utils and oil service while semis, internets, tech, china, trannies and small caps lagged.

As mentioned earlier, Xchanges were strong all day while GS flipped to the green and finished up over a buck after being down about $7 earlier on the MER news.

Key stocks -13 green and 27 red led by ISRG ICE NYX CME BG MSFT CAT XOM GS; down were AMZN MER BIDU UA SMH NVDA CROX TIF and INTC;

NYSE internals- 800 net losers;

NAZ internals 1,100 net losers;

NDX -24 WINNERS;

OEX -30 WINNERS;

IBD 100 -25 WINNERS;

Biggest winners- EJ BTJ PKX ISRG VMW ATI BDK GD COF AMGN RTN DD PCAR MCHP DISH GENZ GILD APOL;

Biggest losers- BRCM ALTR AKAM AMZN SYMC JNPR MRVL SNDK MER INTC NSC NSM NXY CI RF WB COP MDT WCG GSOL GES SYNA CYNO VDSI BIDU;

VIX finished flat after giving a nice buy signal when it was more than 10% above its 10 day SMA;

The SPX also ran into a nice back stop at 1,490, (double bottom) Monday's low, and the MACD Histogram seems to be turning up from below the center line which is sometimes a nice buy signal. Best yet, only 5 trading days left in this lousy month.

And who thinks the Fed will come in with a surprise rate cut when a regularly scheduled one can be done in one week. Makes no sense.