IRAN AGAIN

Markets open lower after the futures pointed up earlier but that ended after the Condi/Hankie press conference where they discussed all the bad about Iran. A little warmongering never helped the markets.

Anyhow, the DJIA -25, NAZ -14 and SPX -3.

Strong sectors- reits, real estate, metals, emerging markets, utils and oils while China, semis, biotech, internets and tech lag.

Looks like more of the market cap of MER is shifting to GS as the former is down 3% while the latter is up over 1%. Also the brilliant move by BAC to buy into CFC may not be so brilliant anymore as CFC has lost about 1/3 of its pre deal value. Nice interest rate though.

Some big winners and losers on some interesting earnings new this AM- Winners:

AKAM MNST ESRX BDK FLIR STP FSTR WX MBT CMG VMW;

Losers- CELG POT NVDA ICE MER MTW AMZN MOS NIHD SYMC CMCSA LRCX;

NYSE internals FLAT

NAZ internals FLAT

NDX internals 40 WINNERS;

OEX internal 30 WINNERS;

IBD 100 -35 WINNERS;

VIX up 2%;

I am keeping the 1,500 level on my SPX radar as that looks like the first area of support while 1,490, yesterdays low is level 2 of support. The 50 day SMA- near 1,497.