On Monday the NASDAQ Composite lost 0.28 points to close at 2007.51 while the S&P500 closed at 1183.78, losing 5.87 points. Volume overall was lower, but I do feel this is not significant following the quad witching on Friday. We saw 1.85 billion shares on the NYSE and on NASDAQ 1.65 billion shares changed hands. Advancers led decliners again, and we had more new 52 week lows than new 52 week highs.
On Monday the DOW closed under its 50 day moving average for the third day in a row. This is a good intermediate to longer term indicator of trends, and as it starts to turn over the markets will have a hard time getting ahead. Remember that just 4 weeks ago the DOW was a sliver away from 11,000, it has fallen now nearly 1000 points in this time.
I am concerned that volume patterns remain weak. I also did not like the fact that on Friday financial stocks acted like they were going to hold, but yesterday they stunk up the joint. Volume patterns overall continue to favor the downside.
Today Uncle Al and his board meet on the future of interest rates. They have already risen rates six times this year, and it is pretty well accepted that they will raise them again today. That will not be the key point to listen in on, you will want to see what the language is: Namely do they continue to talk about raising at a "measured pace"?
There continues to be only a few names in the market that look "good". When I spend two or three hours at night scanning and I'm only able to find a hand full of names that look even mildly attractive that tells me all I need to know. Why should I remain fully invested when things look like crap? So far this has been a wild year. Eventually the trends will resolve themselves up or down, if I had to place a bet, and I'm thankful that I don't, I would say it will be down. When that happens it will become clear and then I will be short. For the time being I am playing small with select stocks, but I have the majority of my money invested in cash. This has allowed me to have a great year thus far. How great of a year? I have not lost a dime when the market has jerked all over the place and tech is now down sharply. Its not the absolute positive returns I need to generate fee's, but it's enough to keep me happy at this point and always in the game.
On Monday the DOW closed under its 50 day moving average for the third day in a row. This is a good intermediate to longer term indicator of trends, and as it starts to turn over the markets will have a hard time getting ahead. Remember that just 4 weeks ago the DOW was a sliver away from 11,000, it has fallen now nearly 1000 points in this time.
I am concerned that volume patterns remain weak. I also did not like the fact that on Friday financial stocks acted like they were going to hold, but yesterday they stunk up the joint. Volume patterns overall continue to favor the downside.
Today Uncle Al and his board meet on the future of interest rates. They have already risen rates six times this year, and it is pretty well accepted that they will raise them again today. That will not be the key point to listen in on, you will want to see what the language is: Namely do they continue to talk about raising at a "measured pace"?
There continues to be only a few names in the market that look "good". When I spend two or three hours at night scanning and I'm only able to find a hand full of names that look even mildly attractive that tells me all I need to know. Why should I remain fully invested when things look like crap? So far this has been a wild year. Eventually the trends will resolve themselves up or down, if I had to place a bet, and I'm thankful that I don't, I would say it will be down. When that happens it will become clear and then I will be short. For the time being I am playing small with select stocks, but I have the majority of my money invested in cash. This has allowed me to have a great year thus far. How great of a year? I have not lost a dime when the market has jerked all over the place and tech is now down sharply. Its not the absolute positive returns I need to generate fee's, but it's enough to keep me happy at this point and always in the game.