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.

Not much to write home about today. The selling showed up early and often, leaving the majors with losses on the day. The Dow Industrials fell 27 points (-0.2%) to 10892, the S&P 500 lost 4 points (-0.3%) to 1263 and the Nasdaq got the worst of it, dropping 22 points (-1.0%) to 2240. The Russell 2000 also had another rough day, losing 7 points (-0.9%) to 711. The Dow Transports lost 0.6% and the Utilities were lower by 0.3%. Bonds were mixed, and the yield curve flattened only slightly: the 6-month yields 4.68%, the 2-year 4.67%, 5-year 4.57%, 10-year 4.58% and the 30-year 4.56%. Hardly normal.

About the only good news you can take away from today was that volume was light - the lightest of the year thus far, probably attributable in part to the northeast blizzard. However, the rest of the internals were pretty lousy. Advances trailed declines by 3 to 5 on the NYSE and nearly 1 to 2 on the Nasdaq, while up/down volume was 6 to 11 on the NYSE and 5 to 14 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 67/43 on the NYSE and 73/30 on the Nasdaq.

Not much green in the groups - the handful of winners was led by the disk drives, up 0.5%. On the losing side were the steel stocks (-2.6%), gold & silver stocks (-2.6%), computer hardware (-1.5%), semiconductors (-1.4%), internets (-1.4%), networking (-1.2%), biotechs (-1.1%) and natural gas stocks (-1.0%).

Energy prices continue to slide, with crude oil falling to $61.16/barrel. Gasoline slipped a couple of cents to $1.44/gallon, and natural gas fell to $7.30/mBTU. The dollar index was pretty much unchanged at 90.57, and the price of gold continues its correction, falling to $540/ounce.

BMB Note: Not much different today. The sentiment picture still looks bearish, and the price action isn’t doing much to help that. Light volume today, we’ll see if it starts to pick back up. CNBC tried to pin the Nasdaq troubles on Google and the negative press in Barron’s over the weekend. Google does have its problems, but I don’t see how you can blame one stock for a 33/62 advance/decline line. Bottom line is that the market is in a downward move here, and you’d best protect yourself however you see fit. Enter the long side at your own risk.

And I guess today would be the reversal of the reversal of the reversal. The market is all over the place, and Gary Kaltbaum gives you his thoughts coming into today’s action.

So far, the morning has brought us a little more of the ugliness. The major indices are slightly in the red, advance/decline numbers don’t look good, and only a handful of groups are showing very modest gains. Taking losses are the gold & silver stocks, steel stocks, internets and semiconductors. Bonds are fairly flat, yields up a little on the long end.

Energy prices are mixed, but there’s little movement. The dollar has edged higher, and gold is down about 5 bucks.

Not a lot to brag about so far today.

According to Chris Johnson at Schaeffer’s, the technical and sentiment indications seem to be stacking up against the market for now:

Summing it up this week, the market’s seemingly feeble attempt to move back into intermediate-term buy mode failed last week as technical pressures overcame buyers’ resolve. With sellers continuing to control the action and some potential volatility in the cards based on an unknown (Mr. Bernanke on the future of further rate increases), this is a week in which downside potential is growing. The next line of support for the SPX lies at the 1,245 level, and it is becoming more likely that this support will be tested in the near term.

Tread lightly.