Hellacious Whack-a-mole In 2 Years

Charts: The S&P 500 closed at 1173, up .6%. The index opened above 1170 and in early going it dropped, found support at 1170 and bounced above this key level. This is good chart action but volume was iffy. FXI (Chinese blue chips) closed above its 200-day moving average in good volume. So far in March it has crossed the 200-day line 7 times. If FXI trades above this level for four days in a row it will be technically significant and bullish for global stock markets. Yield on the US Treasury ten-year note ticked up a tiny bit but stayed below long term technical level of 3.95%. Last Thursday it hit this resistance level, bounced down and has stayed below ever since. It needs to stay below 3.95% this week. The dollar was down sharply today, a good sign.

Fundamentals: On Monday Greece successfully sold $6.7 billion worth of debt. This is why the dollar came down, emerging markets rallied, and the whole financial world heaved a sigh of relief.

Geopolitics: Six days ago the Pak Army launched an offensive against the Pak Taliban in a northern region of the tribal lands. The offensive has killed huge numbers of bad guys to date. Pak media reports claim that between 11 and 22 bad guys were killed on Sunday. Pak media also reports the deal for transferring drone technology from the CIA to the ISI has been finalized and the good guys in Pakistan are overjoyed at this terrific news.
There is no question that the bad guys are taking it on the chin in the Long War’s central battle zone in Afpak. But in the periphery battle zones of the Long War, far away from Afpak, the bad guys are doing much better. Over the weekend 38 civilians were killed in Moscow by Caucus based Islamic terrorists. Two Moscow subway stations were obliterated by female suicide bombers. Not good. Thousands of miles from Russia, the authoritative newsletter Intelligence Online, reports that Yemeni intelligence has been completely infiltrated by AQAP. This goes a long way to explaining why AQAP has been able to send so many terrorists into Saudi Arabia recently. Finally, Sudanese rebels claim to have shot down two army helicopters near Darfur, straining the recently announced peace treaty.
The Afpak theater has a long ways to go before victory can be declared. Way before then the CIA must get a better grip on the vast regions on the periphery of the Long War because someday there will be a hellacious whack-a-mole effect.