Pre Market - September 14th 2007

Futures are down rather significantly thus far this morning on news overnight from Europe that Northern Rock, a mortgage company is now in trouble by the fact that they have had to seek emergency funding in order to remain solvent. Also this morning retail sales figures were released and the data was a downside surprise. A weaker retails figure add the fear back to the markets in that a recession may pan out and become reality.

The pre market volume is higher than it has been in recent days. And on the subject of volume I want to address a comment left last night that the low volume is a result of various religious holidays. One can always find an excuse for low volume, but these days the prevalent reason is, without a doubt, investors/traders sitting on the sidelines. As long as "down" days show higher volume than "up" days, any other excuse is just that--an excuse.

An alert for the short trade on AZO. We want our readers who have entered a short position on AZO to close that trade today while you still have a profit. The reason is that next Tuesday AZO will report earnings. While the recent trading would suggest that there is more downside potential it isn't prudent to hold through earnings. There will always be another opportunity to enter again if earnings prove to be negative.