Friends
Ok, now I guess it matters. For weeks, if not months bad news of all sorts simply didn’t seem to put a dent in the bullish charge we were seeing in the stock market. Now, all of a sudden, a weak guidance by a company, confusing Fed minutes, an iffy domestic economic report (today’s Philly Fed survey) , European weakness, or the coming political showdown sets traders hair on fire, and their itchy trigger finger pushes the sell button. After yesterday’s 1.25% downturn in the S&P, stocks continued the slide early this morning. By midday, the Dow was down another 93 points to add to yesterday’s 108 point drop, and the bears were out in force. Here comes the correction that we’ve all been waiting for, right?
At 2:00 bargain hunters entered the fray and almost brought the Dow back to even territory, but sellers reappeared in the last twenty minutes and the Dow ended down. For the day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day down 46 points to close at 13,880. The S&P 500 was down 9 points to close at 1502. Gold was down $2 to trade at $1576 per ounce, while oil was down $2.22 (that’s good for consumers, right?) to trade at $93 per barrel WTI.
After having the field all to themselves, the bulls are now getting a formidable challenge from the bears. The bears have been screaming about all the negatives for months now. Will market participants take note of the dark side, or will the fear of missing the next move up overshadow the bearish argument? Stay tuned. We’ll let you know how the week finishes up.
Have a nice evening everyone.
