Friends
Stocks were just drifting along, minding their own business, when late in the trading day sellers appeared and pushed the market averages lower. We are kind of in limbo at the moment as traders wait for next week’s FOMC meeting. Surely the Fed will raise the Fed Funds rate by 75 basis points, but their guidance going forward is what market participants are going to be listening for. In the meantime, stocks could move in either direction on little volume and modest conviction.
As for today, by the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 173 points to finish the day at 30,962. The S&P 500 was down 44 points to close at 3,901. The Nasdaq was down 167 points to close at 11,552. Gold was down $37 to trade at $1,671 per ounce, while oil was down $3.28 to trade at $85.20 per barrel WTI.
In case you haven’t noticed, investor sentiment is awful at the moment. It is really hard to build a bullish case for stocks in the near future. We’ve expressed our view that this bear market was going to last longer than recent downturns and as I have mentioned, investors grow weary when downturns drag on. But perhaps the lack of bullish sentiment is a good thing. Every time stocks have moved up this year, any sentiment improvement has been quickly dashed by reality and stocks have then retreated. Maybe it’s best that bullishness remains muted until the time when the fundamental conditions will justify the beginning of a new bull market. In the meantime, let’s see how the week finishes out tomorrow.
Have a nice evening everyone.
