The overall market finished yesterday moderately higher. It is important when trading to remember to protect your profits and cut your losses at realistic levels. Last week in the prime stock newsletter I recommended Home Depot at $27.37/share. Yesterday it closed at $27.91/share, leaving us with a profit to date of $0.54/share. Obviously I want to let my winners run, but I would like to protect my profit. The trick is to set a "stop" that protects my profit, but doesn't get triggered too early causing us to loose out on further upside. I believe that in this case the "stop" for Home Depot should be set $0.25/share above our cost. Therefore I am recommending setting the stop on Home Depot 'HD' at $27.62/share.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average:

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Monday at 8,471.61 up 165.26 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is in a very precarious position. There is an obvious post-war rally and a change in sentiment due to the victory in Iraq. However there are still long issues facing the economy, not to mention the potential for major news from North Korea. Our technical indicators indicate that the Dow has reached an overbought condition, and it appears to be up against a downward trend line that has created resistance against breaking through the 8,500 level. Yet, it appears that we have an upward trend at work to that appears to have been in place since late March. I've seen this occur before. It creates in "technical analysis" what is referred to a triangle pattern. What it means to you and I, is that within a few days one of these trend lines will break, and the market will either move sharply higher or back lower. There isn't a sure way to tell. Since a trend remains in place until it is broken, the current upward trend remains. The Bottom Line: The overall market should move higher.

Today's Opinion: Closed @ 8,471.61 Current Expectations: Called Higher on April 14th, with the close @ 8,351.10 The Index should move higher and test 8,521.97. If the Dow closes above 8,521.97 then it should move higher and test 8,538.24

The S&P 500 closed Monday at 914.84 up 16.03 points. While I was happy to see the S&P 500 move back higher yesterday, the light volume is a point of concern. The chart of the S&P 500 continues to look better than the chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but overall I am concerned about the light volume today, and the Dow leads the S&P 500, not the other way around. A note of caution, but the S&P 500 looks higher.

Today's Opinion: Closed @ 914.84 Current Expections: Called higher with the close of 885.23 on April 14th. The market should continue to move higher and test 923.76 and then 931.66 on a closing basis.

The NASDAQ 100 Index closed Monday @ 1,107.13 up 23.94 points. The trend of the NASDAQ 100 (NDX) continues to be to the upside. The NDX also suffered from light volume today. It appears the NDX will continue to move higher and test 1,127.06, it's closing high set on November 25th of last year. If the NDX closes above that level then it will have completed a small cup pattern with a measured move to 1,302.22

Current Opinion: Closed @ 1,083.56 Current Expectations: Called Higher with the close on April 14th @ 1,048.31. The NDX should move higher and test 1,127.06 and then 1,302.22 on a closing basis.