Friends
It looked like the bulls were prepared to hit the gas pedal on the quarter end rally this morning as the Dow moved nearly 500 points higher at the open. But things went downhill from there, sparked by more lousy consumer confidence data, and the Dow moved 1000 points lower to down nearly 500 points late in the trading session. It was a very ugly reversal and a bit surprising. We have been suspicious of rallies this year, so that is not new, but given things had quieted somewhat in the last week this kind of plunge took me a little by surprise.
By the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 491 points to finish the day at 30,946. The S&P 500 was down 78 points to close at 3,821. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 343 points to close at 11,181. Gold was down $4 to trade at $1,820 per ounce, while oil was up $2.06 to trade at $111.63 per barrel WTI.
Today was just another example of how you can’t get too anxious during a bear market. Rallies will happen and attempt to lure you in, only to disappoint you over and over. Eventually, there will be a rally that will be the beginning of the next bull market move. The problem is we don’t know how many false starts we must endure first. We have 2 more trading sessions until quarter end. Let’s see how they go.
Have a nice evening everyone.
