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.

While some of the biggest names in tech topped weeks ago and have been sliding ever since — CSCO, DELL, INTC, MSFT — others had been holding up relatively well until recently. Times appear to have changed, and we’re now seeing some of the tech leaders rolling over to join the laggards — and the rest of the market. Here are a few leading tech names that look like they may be puting in significant tops (AAPL, AMD, GOOG, MOT, MRVL, TXN):

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com

Boy oh boy. Are we having fun yet?

The selling continued pretty much unabated today, and there was was nowhere to hide. The major indices don’t really do a great job of displaying the damage, with the Dow was down 36 points (-0.4%) to 10217 and the S&P 500 dropped 7 points (-0.6%) to 1178. The real damage did come through in the Nasdaq numbers, as the tech-laden index fell 24 points (-1.2%) to 2038. The trouncing of small and mid-caps continues as well. The Russell 2000 dropped 9 points (-1.4%) to 622. The Dow Transports gave up 1.7% and the Utilities got whacked for 2.0%. Bonds did no better than stocks, selling off and pushing yields to their highest levels since March: the 5-year stands at 4.31% and the 10-year at 4.44%.

Market internals were gross, and volume was strong. Advances/declines came in at a little better than 1 to 4 on the NYSE and 1 to 3 on the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 1 to 3 on the NYSE and 1 to 4 on the Nasdaq, with new highs/lows starting to get really ugly at 19/318 on the NYSE and 25/232 on the Nasdaq.

Yuk, yuk, and more yuk across the industries today. Drug stocks (+0.4%) held up alright on Pfizer’s lawsuit news, but that’s about it. The losers spread far and wide, with the worst being gold & silver stocks (-2.7%), disk drives (-2.4% - yup, they’ve caught up with SNDK and FLSH too), brokers (-2.3%), oil stocks (-2.1%), natural gas stocks (-2.1%), computer hardware (-2.0%), biotechs (-2.0%), natural resources (-1.8%), paper stocks (-1.8%), steel stocks (-1.8%), utilities (-1.7%), REITs (-1.7%), commodities (-1.7%), transportation (-1.6%), oil services (-1.6%) and housing stocks (-1.6%).

Crude oil prices moved higher by about a half-buck to $64.12/barrel, with gasoline and natural gas holding steady. The dollar index fell 0.4% to 89.66, and gold slipped to $471/ounce.

BMB Note: This is not a pretty sight. Try not to look, stay out of the way, and don’t let too much of the mess get on you as it goes by. It can’t hurt you if you’re not in.

Today’s update from the Minerals Management Service (GOM = Gulf of Mexico):

Today’s shut-in oil production is 1,046,462 BOPD. This shut-in oil production is equivalent to 69.76% of the daily oil production in the GOM, which is currently approximately 1.5 million BOPD.

Today’s shut-in gas production is 5.919 BCFPD. This shut-in gas production is equivalent to 59.19% of the daily gas production in the GOM, which is currently approximately 10 BCFPD.

The cumulative shut-in oil production for the period 8/26/05-10/12/05 is 55,602,122 bbls, which is equivalent to 10.156 % of the yearly production of oil in the GOM (approximately 547.5 million barrels).

The cumulative shut-in gas production 8/26/05-10/12/05 is 277.527 BCF, which is equivalent to 7.603 % of the yearly production of gas in the GOM (approximately 3.65 TCF).

Refco, a large commodities/futures/currencies broker, went public about 2 months ago. Today, their former CEO is under arrest for securities fraud. Hope you didn’t own this stock, cuz it’s pretty much gone in the tank this week, losing two-thirds of its value.

Now the questions are coming up about the underwriting of the IPO, and whether sufficient due diligence was done, etc. Expect this to grow into a larger deal than just a Refco problem.

Time to get your hands on that programmable thermostat. As you might expect, your heating bills are going to be higher this winter. Quite a bit higher.

As promised yesterday, the Energy Information Administration did come through with a reduced energy demand outlook. However, traders apparently don’t believe that news, when considered with all other known factors, justifies lower prices.

Yet energy stocks are trading down with the rest of the market. You try to figure it out.

Weekly inventories will be out tomorrow morning, a day later due to the Monday holiday.

Not much positive happening again today. The majors are all in the red, with the Nasdaq taking it the worst for another day, down nearly 1% at 2042. In tech land, the market hasn’t taken well to the earnings reports from AMD and AAPL, with AMD down 8% and AAPL down 4% at this point. They are joined by SNDK, another leading stock, today getting hit for 5.5%.

Bonds are lower as well, continuing to push rates higher. The 5-year is at 4.29% and the 10-year at 4.41%.

The drug stocks are the leading group, but they’re only up by 0.5%, helped by a positive U.K. court ruling for Pfizer and Lipitor. Leading the way lower are disk drives (read SNDK), biotechs, retailers, housing and REITs.

Oil prices are up by 50 cents, back near $64.

Not a pretty picture thus far, especially in the Nasdaq.