Bear Mountain Bull

It’s time again for a little BMB R&R, especially with the market behaving as bizarrely as it’s been. Maybe if we stop watching it start to behave a little better…

Posting will be very light and variable over the course of this week, but we’ll put up an open thread each market day for our readers to comment on the day’s market activity or to post any interesting links they might run across.

Check the space below for whatever the latest might be during this ‘off’ time, and please visit the various sites in the ‘Links’ and ‘Regular Stops’ for up-to-date market news and analysis.

BMB will be back in full swing by next weekend.

Another day where not much could move the markets in either direction. Cisco struggled and semiconductors got hit, but the Nasdaq only took a 9 point loss (-0.4%). The Dow fell less than a point and the S&P just over a point. The Russell 2000 gained 3.

Internals didn’t show too much damage, as advances led declines about 5 to 4, and up volume led down volume slightly on the NYSE. On the Nasdaq, however, up volume trailed down volume by almost 1 to 2. New highs again outnumbered new lows by more than 9 to 1.

Some industry groups did manage gains today, as oil services bounced back by 2.6%, natural gas stocks gained 1.5% and defense stocks gained 1.0%. Airlines fell 3.2%, and technology stocks took a tumble, with semiconductors down 2.4%, disk drives down 1.5%, and internet stocks down 1.2%.

With the Fed’s quarter-point raise of the Fed funds rate, the bond market sent the 10-year yield up a little again today to 4.25%. The bond market is closed for trading tomorrow.

Crude oil came off its lows of yesterday after the inventory numbers this morning, and moved back up to the $48.80 range.

No surprises here. At all.

Looks like a new ETF that tracks the price of gold could be trading soon.

For another week, crude oil inventories were up while distillate inventories fell.