A typical Friday before a long holiday weekend. Stocks opened slightly lower and pressed briefly upside and then pressed briefly the downside. Stocks were basically done trading by 11.00 am EST and from there just stayed in a very narrow sideways range. However...the final 30 minutes of the day saw some selling coming in and at the end all of the major averages were down for the day.
After a very quiet and low volume session the Dow closed - 14.81 points (-0.18 %) and the S&P was down 0.15 % or - 1.33 points.
After a rather tumultuous week today's session was almost anticlimactic. Stocks finished off their lows for the week but still lower than where we were a week ago.
There was no major economic report released today...so fundamentally there was nothing which moved the market.
Today has to be viewed as a classic consolidation day. Volume was very light and the range was extremely narrow. The market has definitely taken a timeout after volatile days earlier in the week.
Of course...the big question is what's next ?
As I have stated since Wednesday...I am not short/bearish stocks...at least for the short term. I believe that the uptrend which started March 9th has at least temporarily stopped and I do expect losses from here on out.
However...losses will, I believe, be muted and I do not expect the type of full fledged sell off we had seen earlier in the year. I expect the Dow to hit the 7850 area and from where I will have to see how the market acts before I can come up with a more viable call.
Unless the Dow manages to close above 8620 I will remain short.
Have a great holiday weekend and see you all next week,
Steve Benger
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