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.

This week we’ll take a slightly different look at the market sectors, with the help of the PerfCharts feature at StockCharts.com. These charts show the relative performance of any number of stocks or indices on the same chart grid.

The first chart shows the sector SPDRs and their relative performance since January 5th of this year. Note the large outperformance of the energy stocks early in the year, but the sideways movement of nearly all of the other sectors. Then note that even the energy stocks have gone nowhere since the later part of February.

The next chart zooms in on the period from the last week in February to the present. It’s quite clear that there has been no sector leadership during that period, and all sectors seem to be stuck moving sideways or with a downward bias. Right now the strongest sector appears to be the utilities, as they have bounced back somewhat from the hit they took on rising interest rate fears. The market continues to struggle for direction, and is in danger of sliding lower as the major indices are testing their support levels.

Here’s where we stand after this week’s trading:

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com