Market Quiet After Gap Up

After some signs of weakness under the hood yesterday and erratic price action this week due to the Cyprus headlines, traders were surprised this morning to see S&P futures up almost 10 handles before the open. But given the resilience we have seen in this year, I guess nothing bullish should surprise us. The market was extremely quiet after the gap up, holding those pre-market gains but unable to build any additional momentum. The Fed announcement came today with no game changers, which was expected. The S&P finished the day up 0.67% while the Nasdaq showed relative strength with a 0.78% gain.

After obsessing over the Cyprus bailout headlines for the first two days of the week, the world markets de-emphasized the issue overnight. From a trading perspective, the macro trend remains bullish, but when you start to see erratic action, it's a cue to take caution and lighten up on the size of positions.

From a stock perspective it was a pretty ho-hum today as the rally was broad with few standouts.

The financials bounced back overnight but were mostly quiet during the session. The two US banks sensitive to the European debt crisis were two of the strongest today: Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS). Recent standout Bank of America (BAC) is hanging up near highs.

Apple (AAPL) seems to be resting after a break of the downtrend, but is still above the $450 level. I think composure is starting to improve bit by bit.

One standout today that we talked about on Twitter yesterday was Corning (GLW). The company's core business is LED and LCD displays, but the growth story comes from Gorilla Glass, which makes up the screens for smartphones and tablets. The stock broke above the a key price level at $13 today, attracting some momentum traders to the scene. GLW finished the day up 2.73%.

*DISCLOSURES: Scott Redler is long AAPL, S, MGM, GLW, F, YHOO, BAC, AAPL call spread. Short SPY, HPQ.