Early in the session when the Dow was off only two hundred points, the NASDAQ was higher while several S&P sectors were in the red including:

• Communication Services
• Consumer Discretionary
• Technology

The leadership in those sectors are coming from momentum names like Facebook (FB) and Amazon (AMZN), suggesting some investors are itching to buy this dip and go back to the usual suspects.  Semiconductor names are acting pretty good getting bid up, in sympathy with Qualcomm (QCOM) which is higher on a favorable China court ruling in their battle with Apple (AAPL).

On Apple, I don’t think the Apple news is related to Huawei developments from last week for several reasons:

1. Tim Cook has been the biggest American CEO lobbying the White House to be careful with the tariff battle.
2. Apple reports as many as 4.8 million Chinese jobs.
3. Qualcomm is benefiting as it is a US company, and all lots of chip stocks are higher today
4. Impacts older models and even some of those are still listed on Apple’s website in China.

Apple got low enough to attract buyers, lifting the shares five dollars off the low of the session.

There is no fundamental reason for the market to be lower and if the right buyers emerge, we could see urgency to buy as the pendulum of fear swings from sell everything to buy something.

That kind of action probably would need all three indices to move into positive territory which is still a tall order with three hours left in the session; however, NASDAQ has already gone positive. 

Geological Woes

For now, the market seems focused on geopolitical events with the ultimate one-two punch coming from France and the United Kingdom.  Interestingly, the Brexit vote delay news began to swirl before the open and stocks edged higher.  But watching the actual announcement and the harsh tones in the British Parliament seems to have spooked the market.

One of the reactions beyond the parlor game of guess is the flight of the US dollar.  The strong dollar has been a huge headwind for the US stock market and taken a big toll on multinational revenue numbers.  Right now, it’s edging toward its 2018 high.  

Meanwhile, defense contract stocks are up big today on reports the Trump administration is looking for $750 billion in its FY20 budget.   

On the economy news today, there were 7.1 million job openings while private sector quits continue to drift lower from the August high 3.5 million.