Friday, December 5, 2008

Bad News Got Bought Today

The bulls were extremely anxious to buy the bad news today. In fact they were a little too anxious to start the day, and that resulted in some of them being trapped when we didn't go straight up after the very ugly jobs report. However, after fumbling around for a while, the dip-buyers got things going, and once we made a new intraday high, the rush was on.

It is obviously a positive that market players are so anxious to add long exposure when the news is so terrible. It certainly lends much weight to the argument that the worst has been priced in. On top of it, we have positive seasonality into the end of the year kicking in, and the charts are looking better.

The biggest negative continues to be this wild volatility. I think the DJIA had an intraday swing of more than 300 points every day this week. That just does not invite prudent speculation. However, the volatility was mostly on the positive side. The bulls were bailed out on every dip, and that should boost confidence.

The primary bullish argument here is that we have priced in the worst. We'll see how well confidence in that assertion can hold as we digest today's jobs report. Nonetheless, the bulls have the advantage and are in good shape to build on it next week.

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