Stocks opened around the unchanged level and managed to stay the entire day in a narrow band around the break even line. A late bout of selling pushed all of the major indices off their highs towards the lower end of their range.
After everything was set and done the Dow closed with a minimal loss of 0.19 % while the broader based S&P managed to close up + 0.23 %.
The only economic report released was the Existing Home Sales report.
The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home went up by 2.4% last month. This equals an adjusted annual rate of 4.77 million units compared to the revised rate of 4.66 million in April.
However...while the uptick seems like good news it also came with some baggage. The median home sales price reported for the period was only 173,000...a 16.8 % drop from the period 1 year ago.
Of course...the bigger issue currently occupying the markets is the ongoing FED policy meeting scheduled to finish tomorrow afternoon.
It is pretty obvious to observers that there will be no change in the interest rate policy tomorrow. However.....the big issue for the day will be the policy statement to be released around 2.15 ET.
Market participants are hoping for clues from the FED as to where the economy is heading (and at what pace) and it seems entirely possible that the FED statement might trigger a bit of a bigger market move.
Today's market action was contained but somewhat lousy after yesterdays heavy losses. There was not much bottom picking evident and volume was once again low.
The lack of any bounce suggests to me that stocks will test the downside some more. I cannot think of a FED statement which can set the markets on "fire" and push prices higher.
Tomorrow should be a much more interesting day.
Until tomorrow,
Steve Benger
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