Recession eases.

The Fed confirmed what Wall Street has already concluded: The U.S. recession is starting to ease.

Investors were encourage by a rebound in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, and a decline in business inventories. On President Barack Obama's 100th day in office, the GDP report at least provided signs that the nation is seeing its economic slide start to moderate.

In a bull market, the market ignores bad news. Today, we ignored extremely bad news.
Tracking the Dow on Wednesday,29/04/09
9:30am:--Bullish 80.0 points spike with an early spin pullback.

First quarter GDP declined 6.1%, which is much worse than the 4.7% decline that was widely expected, but up slightly from the 6.3% drop that was experienced in the fourth quarter.

10:30am:--Bullish spin with spike up up session high.

The upbeat tone was undeterred by a worse-than-expected GDP reading, which showed that first quarter economic activity declined 6.1%. The consensus called for a 4.7% decline. However, news that personal consumption swung from a 4.3% decrease in the fourth quarter to a 2.2% increase in the first quarter has some participants feeling encouranged.

11:30am:--Bearish spin pullback as usual for lunch break.

Stocks have been trading with solid, broad-based gains for the entire session.

12:30noon:--An inverted bullish hammer noted.

Participants await the FOMC's latest policy directive (2:15 PM ET), which is expected to keep the target interest rate between 0.00% and 0.25%.

1;30pm:--Bulls still holding at session high.

The Fed said that household spending has seen signs of stabilization, but will continue to be pressured by job losses, decreased housing wealth and tight credit conditions.

2:30pm:--Bullish spike up on FOMC news.

The FOMC believe that inflation will remain subdued, with a risk of persistent inflation at levels below those that promote economic and price stability.
The vote to leave the fed funds rate and quantitative measures unchanged was unanimous.

3:30pm:--The normal practice,pullback to day's MAV.

The DOE crude oil inventories report this morning revealed a build of over 4 million barrels.
4:00pm:--A breakway bull.

Bullish follow through

The advance first quarter GDP report indicated that the U.S. economy fell 6.1% between January and March. A drop of 4.7% had been expected. Despite the ugly headline number, participants weren't deterred from bidding stocks higher.

The Dow Index is now about at Pivot month peak and we are in a bear rally.

Any pullback in the next half month will be back to month's MAV.

The road is still bumpy ahead of banks stress test results.

Stress Methodology

The 19 companies that hold one-half of the loans in the U.S. banking system won't be allowed to fail -- even if they fared poorly on the stress tests.
The Federal Reserve on Friday said the government is prepared to rescue any of the banks that underwent "stress tests" and were deemed vulnerable if the recession worsened sharply.
The Fed reinforced its view that major financial firms are "too big to fail," and the government must do The federal examiners—eventually comprising a team of more than 150 from the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.—have been working since late February on the analysis of bank holding companies with more than $100 billion in assets at the end of 2008. The banks collectively hold two-thirds of the assets, or more than half the loans, in the U.S. banking system, according to the Federal Reserve. whatever is necessary to save them, said former Fed examiner Mark Williams.

The analysis looked at the banks' ability to withstand two economic scenarios: one mirroring the consensus of economic experts on the course of the downturn through 2010 and the second modeling a worse-than-expected course of economic activity.
The Federal Reserve, in its Apr. 24 white paper on the methodology behind the stress test>, noted that "the assessment is a 'what if' exercise intended to help supervisors gauge the extent of additional capital needs across a wide range of potential economic outcomes." The central bank noted that the need for more capital "is not a measure of the current solvency or viability of the firm."
Among the factors considered in the stress test scenarios were gross domestic product, the unemployment rate, and the direction of housing prices. The stress tests measure how the banks will perform if unemployment rises to between 8.8% and 10.3% in 2010; the economy grows by 2.1% and 0.5%; and home prices drop by 4% to 7%. To determine a bank's capital needs, regulators looked at a host of different measures, including Tier 1 capital.
Tracking the Dow on Friday,24/04/09.


9:30am:-a 70.0 points bull spike.
Durable goods orders slipped in March, but fell far less than Wall Street expected.
10:30am:-no sign of gap-up refill.
Bullish candle.Sales of new single-family homes dropped, but inventories plummeted at a record pace.
11:30am:--Session high breakout.
American Express shooting up nearly 21 percent to $25.30 a day after reporting results that topped analysts' expectations, helped by aggressive cost cutting.
12:30noon:--Still holding at session high but with hangman.
Somehow or rather must pullback to MAV at this hour.Ford Motor Co also posted a smaller-than-expected first-quarter loss and said it was on track to at least break even in 2011 and did not expect to seek U.S. government loans, sending its shares up 11.4 percent to $5.
1:30pm:--Bearish hammer,sign of pullback to MAV.
Software giant Microsoft Corp provided the biggest boost to the Nasdaq, up 10.5 percent at $20.91, after investors cheered cost-cutting efforts.
2:30pm:--The bullish engulfing after completing the MAV.
Shares of online retail giant Amazon.com, up 4.8 percent at $84.46, gave another lift to the Nasdaq after beating profit and sales estimates.
3:30pm:--Hammer and bearish top spin.
The Federal Reserve said the top 19 U.S. banks need to hold a "substantial" amount of capital above regulatory requirements to weather a potential worsening of the economic recession, according to the Fed's white paper on bank stress tests.
4:00pm:--A nearly 80.0 points dive.
A fake last minute bull.We are in for another hefty pullback follow through.

Friday's inverted hammer fall short of penetrating Monday's full body.
Any pullback will be within the half naked body.
We are in the bullish zone.