Yes, ugly can get even uglier.
The selloff accelerated today on big volume, as things were negative right out of the gate. The major indices went crashing through their support levels, the Dow reaching triple digit losses midday, tried to rally, and then just gave up in the last hour of trading. Luckily, the market has a closing time.
The Dow Industrials dove 125 points (-1.2%) to 10279, the S&P 500 dropped 12 points (-1.0%) to 1162 and the Nasdaq plunged 28 points (-1.4%) to 1947. The Russell 2000 fell 11 points (-1.8%) to 592, the Dow Transports were hammered again, this time to the tune of 3.0%, the Dow Utilities fell 1.1%, and bonds hung near the unchanged level, with the 10-year yield at 4.36%.
Market internals were horrid. Advances/declines were 7 to 26 on the NYSE and 7 to 23 on the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was even worse, at about 1 to 4 on both exchanges. New highs/lows were 18/115 on the NYSE and 24/151 on the Nasdaq. Days don’t get much worse than this one.
Winners? You’re joking, right? Well, there was one group: drug stocks moved higher by 0.5%. But the other groups were all losers, so I’ll only give you the worst: steel stocks continue to crumble, down another 6.1%, followed by airlines (-4.0%), gold & silver stocks (-3.3%), housing (-3.1%), chemicals (-2.8%), disk drives (-2.7%), transportation (-2.6%), computer hardware (-2.5%), and paper (-2.5%).
Crude oil prices, after a brief dip below the $50 level, rebounded to $51.13. The dollar index moved higher by 0.7%, and gold prices fell to near $423/ounce.
The Dow and the Nasdaq have broken through their support levels that we talked about the other day, and the S&P is resting right on its support. This could get worse before it gets better.