The major indices gave back some, but not all of their gains late in the day. All finished up slightly (less than 0.5%) for the session. Advance/declines and up volume/down volume was positive on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq, while new highs/new lows was about 1:1.
Winning industries on the day were transportation stocks, with the Nasdaq Transportation index up 2.4%, and gold stocks finished higher by 2% (and if anyone has any clue at all why transportation stocks continue to move to new highs when oil is near $55/barrel, would they please let me know? I just don’t get that at all…).
Not any big losers in the industry indexes, but the big insurance companies involved in the Spitzer lawsuit got whacked pretty good again today. The disk drive index dropped 2.5%, but there are only 10 stocks in that index, and half of them are under $10 so it’s kind of hard to take it real seriously. Yesterday Sandisk was the big loser, today is was Maxstor, down over 17% on a move of $0.94. Maybe we should place a ban on discussing the disk drive index along with the airlines until either one can be deemed interesting. Speaking of airlines, we get word today that Delta will lose more money than expected - are we supposed to be surprised? If anyone wants to bet me that this airline is NOT going into bankruptcy, I’ll even give you odds…
This market still feels like there’s a lot more downside risk than there is upside opportunity. I’ll be honest, if the market is going to head lower, I wish it would just do it and get it over with. You can’t make money in either direction if the market continues to go sideways. So can we just be done with it and move, one way or the other??