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.

A decent finish to the week. The markets made a nice move mid-morning, never really followed through any further, but hung onto much of the gains to finish higher on the day. The Dow moved higher by 46 points (+0.4%) to 10796, the S&P 500 added 8 points (+0.7%) to 1205, and the Nasdaq was the star of the day (for a change) with a gain of 24 points (+1.2%) to close at 2077. The Russell 2000 outdid the big boys by gaining 8 points (+1.3%) to finish at 635, and the bond market moved slightly lower moving the 10-year Treasury yield up to 4.09%.

For the week, the Dow gained 80 points (+0.7%), the S&P 500 gained 2 points (+0.2%), the Nasdaq lost 10 points (-0.5%), and the Russell 2000 lost 3 points (-0.4%).

Market internals were healthy. Volume was good, advances/declines came in at 23 to 10 on the NYSE and 2 to 1 on the Nasdaq, and up/down volume ran nearly 4 to 1 on the NYSE and 3 to 1 on the Nasdaq. New highs outnumbered new lows by 295 to 83, with 65 of the new lows coming on the Nasdaq.

Gains were pretty much across the board today, with the best moves coming out of semiconductors (+3.6%), disk drives (+2.4%), biotechs (+2.0%), gold & silver stocks (+1.9%, following through on their move up yesterday), transports (+1.6%), and broker/dealers (+1.6%). The only group making a move on the down side was the housing group, dropping 1.1%.

Crude oil moved just slightly higher to $47.16/barrel, the dollar index held steady and gold prices moved higher to just abover $420/ounce.

A huge number of Google shares will finally come out of lock-up next week. I hear some saying that it might not affect the stock that much, because those shares will just be ‘available’ to be sold, that not everyone holding those shares will be selling them.

Yeah. Sure.

Ok, you’re a Google employee. You got options on say, 1,000 shares when you signed on 3 1/2 years ago - you got in a little late, and you’re not that high on the food chain. Who knows what your strike price is, does it matter? The stock IPO’ed below $100, has run up to $200, and now sits at $188 and change. Been above $200 a few times, hasn’t stayed there. The market currently values your company at over $50 billion. $50 billion! You’re an internet search engine - don’t really sell anything - well, ok, advertising and stuff like that but… All of the other big internet names sitting around you - EBAY, AMZN, OSTK, YHOO, TZOO - have gotten smacked down hard in the last month. What will you do?

Take the money and run, baby.

The homebuilders are getting smacked today, all because of an analyst report.

Sure, one analyst opens his mouth and the group tanks. But if any real numbers come out, like declines in new housing starts or sales, the stocks barely budge. Doesn’t make sense. If you thought these stocks were worth owning yesterday, why not today?

The homebuilders will break. Someday. Probably pretty badly. But when that time comes, I don’t think it will be because of an analyst’s report. And until that time comes, in spite of what I or an analyst thinks about them, they remain one of the strongest groups in the market.

At least for now.

The market sort of sprung back to life mid-morning, with the Nasdaq catching a pretty decent bid, up 1.0% right now - S&P 500 is up 0.8%. Semiconductors leading the way, with the SOX up 3.3%.

Though this market is struggling and may ultimately roll over, it’s putting up a bit of a fight today.

Apple plans a 2-for-1 stock split.

There have been a lot of splits, IPOs and mergers lately. Feels like a top to me.