It sure felt like a bear market today. Bulls hoped to see some window-dressing by fund managers, but it looked like they might be dealing with liquidations instead.
A minor opening bounce was aggressively sold, and a couple minor attempts to turn the action up during the day failed miserably, so the market closed near the lows of the day. It is dispiriting how quickly our three-day bounce was crushed.
Volume was a bit lighter, which may indicate that the action didn't reflect a full-fledged panic -- but that may not be a good thing. This market looks as though it is anticipating a big, bad news event of some sort and it isn't going to bottom until what exactly that might be becomes clear. A slew of possible negatives could hit the fan but they are still quite vague and not quantified, which is what prevents us from making a good low. Maybe. Maybe not.
