Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Market "Participants" Aren't Participating

A good word to sum up the action today is "tedious." The DJIA and S&P 500 were up a minor amount, and the Nasdaq was slightly in the red, but it was just slow and very random trading. There was no vigor in either direction, and even though volume improved quite a bit over yesterday, it felt like there was very little participation.

Breadth jumped around quite a bit and finished slightly on the positive side. Gold-mining led all day, but after an OK start, oil, chips and retail rolled over and finished down.

Technically the S&P 500 continued to hold above the 1040 level, which everyone seems to be watching. Quite a few sell stops are likely to trigger if we hit again.

We have quite a bit of economic data in the next few days, starting with the ADP employment report and ISM index tomorrow. We are dancing around to these reports because there just isn't much else going on. The technical picture remains negative, although some quick bounces are going to keep it tricky for the bears.

After the close, it is being reported that NFLX services will be available on the new AAPL TV Talk initiative that is to be announced soon. That seem to be helping the mood, and we are seeing some strong buying in late trading.

long AAPL

No comments: