notes for tuesday..follow on twitter@jimiuorio

      No longer is europe the only visible threat to the economic recovery. Now we have to worry about the wet blanket of higher oil prices to potentially slow growth. The rally in oil would be fine if its root cause was growing domestic demand. However, when the threat of supply shock takes center stage we must be very cautious. As we have spoken about in the past, im almost never short oil, at least not overnight and that's because of the obvious reason, alot can happen overnight and none of it good. If i was going to make a play in oil i would buy xom above 86 as it has recently broken out of a well defined trend triangle and could have room to run. The last thing to mention regarding oil is that we still have global central banks devaluing fiat currencies at the first sign of any trouble and that has to mean inflation at some point in time.
     Its been almost 2 months since utilities fell out of favor for no other sin than having done too well and i believe they have served their time. Tomorrow i believe  will start scaling into a long position in xlu. The fundamental argument for utilities is an attractive yield when compared to a sub 2% ten year and we buy utilities when we can think of nothing else to buy. Most of the other sectors have had sizable up moves over the last 2 months and have left them susceptible to a correction.
    As always, i like gld and will look to increase long exposure if gld trades above 168
    WARNING--the remainder of this blog post will be about politics
    According to a national poll, santorum has officially taken the top spot among republicans. Here is a message to republicans; the middle hates and is frightened by santorum and he has almost no chance of winning in the general election. It is sad when the gop cant figure this simple math out for themselves. Its a question of compromise, in this case with your own hard right ideals. Support for santorum is the same as support for obama and i guarantee that there are smiles all around the white house every time he gains steam. As a side note i kind of like santorum as president because of his conservative economic policy but that should not be part of the discussion. Electability is the key and they must be able to see past their selfish agendas. I know i didnt say anything that everybody doesn't already know, but it feels good to say it out loud...have a great night....jim