© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The President’s energy press conference was mundane populist politics at its finest on some levels, yet a most interesting affair regarding that on one level. It was a real showcase of the philosophical difference between free market capitalism and state-controlled pricing. Let’s allow there is indeed something to be said for whether oil companies that keep reporting record profits every quarter actually still need tax credits to support future exploration and drilling.

The oil companies cannot have it both ways. If high energy prices are due to sustained increases in global demand (which is true) and not cartel control, then prices are definitely going to remain high. As the tax credits which the oil companies receive are (at least conceptually) a form of insurance. They were there to encourage the companies to take on (admittedly expensive) exploring and drilling for crude oil in spite of the risk that the initial return on any discoveries might be flat or negative if the oil price drops for a sustained period of time. As everyone now allows that is an unlikely development, is it really necessary to continue that form of subsidy?

It is thoroughly possible the President is on a reasonable economic view in that regard, even if at least part of the incentive to express his view is pure partisan election year politics. And that’s where the somewhat shocking, if subtle, attack on free market capitalism comes along. We don’t think anyone as smart as Mr. Obama flunked (or would flunk) an economics course. It is more so it suits his purpose to ignore basic economic maxims… and support ignorance of (as in ‘conveniently forget it exists’) basic things like the Supply-Demand balance. Occupy-Supply Demand!!!

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© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

Short & Sweet on the specific market comments in this post, because today’s TrendView Brief Update was such an extended discussion of the potential for a psychological shift in the equities trend. Might that possibly be the beginning of a more substantial significant trend reversal as well? That's quite a bit more problematic into the beginning of a new quarter next week. However, if the June S&P 500 future should remain well below last week's 1394.10 Close tomorrow for this week's Close, that would be the worst week-on-week activity exhibited so far this year.

And after the new trading high (i.e. above last week’s 1,407.80) not seen in most other equity indices, that would also be a weekly DOWN Closing Price Reversal (CPR.) While across time any technical topping pattern can be overrun, it would represent the first bona fide technical DOWN signal on actual price movement since last summer.

And all of this happens to be occurring just as the global economic data is turning a bit weaker; perversely enough except for Japan. And yet, there are a couple of more telling considerations which may be the key to the weekly Close that go beyond tomorrow's extensive global economic data…

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© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The full calendar is available through the link in the right hand column. The focused comments below it will be available in the calendar section shortly after the weekly calendar is posted each week as Summary Perspective on Key Influences. We hope you find that useful as well.

It’s another critical mid-to-late week decision horizon this week again. Not to say that there are no important influences early in the week. We have already seen Mr. Bernanke's expected reaffirmation of endless liquidity provision bolster the equities and weigh on the primary government bond markets.

And there is no small amount of additional central bank-speak during the balance of the week; most heavily concentrated into Tuesday and Thursday. That goes right along a goodly number of important central bank reports and finance ministers meetings, especially the European meetings from early Friday morning.

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© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

In spite of the buoyancy of the German Bund, govvies are still acting more like a market entering an intermediate term trend reversal to the downside. As we have not seen that since QE2 anticipation and implementation back in August-November 2010, some perspective might be useful. What we know for certain is classical macro-technical equities vs. govvies counterpoint trend activity is back.

Yet, that can appear confusing at times because of the leads and lags. Govvies tend to "interpret" the equities trend rather than respond with any immediate inverse activity. This was the case both before and after last week's sharp trend activity in both asset classes. Govvies that held up well in the face of the previous equities rally were crushed by the June S&P 500 future push above 1,367-69 last week Tuesday.

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© 2012 ROHR International, Inc. All International rights reserved.

The Current Rohr Technical Projections - Key Levels & Select Comments (as of Wednesday’s US Close) are now available through the link in the right hand column. We have summarized some of the most interesting and telling tendencies below.

It is of note that equities weakness this morning is on the back of surprisingly soft Chinese and European Advance Purchasing Managers Indices. That is because of the assertion by many that China is successfully engineering a "soft landing".(??) As such, its index sliding further below 50.0 is quite a telling concern for the current return to a more upbeat global economic psychology.

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