Reaction to Apple’s Earnings Holds Key

Buyers hung tough on Monday because DaBoyz were able to exhaust sellers ahead of the opening bell. They won’t be able to rig the game this way on Tuesday, however, since the ‘coronavirus effect’  — on stocks, not humans — is already well in play. Rumors continue to swirl concerning the death toll in China, but it would take a very large pile of bodies to slow Wall Street’s buying orgy for more than two days. Investable funds are effectively unlimited, implying they will continue to exert irresistible, upward force on stocks. Coronavirus, on the other hand, is hardly an immovable object — just a scary news story that continues to mutate but will lose force with nut-so investors if dead bodies fail to pile up to the sky.  Absent that pile of bodies, however, and for the time being, bulls would seem to hold the edge. That could change following Tuesday’s market close, however, with the release of Apple’s earnings. The reaction should give us a good read on the robustness and vigor of the bull market, setting the tone for earnings announcements later this week from the biggies: Boeing, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon.