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.

	The high-flying REITs were the hardest hit during the afternoon selling - but they were bought right back up going into the close.
	MasterCard warned of lower profit margins for ‘07. The news didn’t go over real well.
	The networking stocks can attest to the ‘easy come, easy go’ nature of this market.
	The brokers were hot a few weeks ago, but have been unable to match those highs, and a move below 248 would be cause for concern.

Charts courtesy of StockCharts.com

Well, we finally got a little excitement, as a bit of a swoon hit after lunch and took the market down a little, but that move was stopped pretty quickly. The indices finished with losses nonetheless, but without any real major damage done at this point. Should the selling start to get more aggressive, then maybe we’ll have something to talk about.

Bonds suffered a setback today, and yields moved up:
6-month: 5.15%    2-yr: 4.90%    5-yr: 4.77%    10-yr: 4.78%   30-yr: 4.86%.

Market internals were on the ugly side, and volume climbed in the afternoon as the selling got going. That action isn’t real encouraging. Advances/declines were 3 to 7 on the NYSE and 1 to 2 on the Nasdaq. Up/down volume was 3 to 7 on the NYSE and 1 to 3 on the Nasdaq. New highs/lows were 259/22 on the NYSE and 159/40 on the Nasdaq.

Quite few groups tooks hits - the selling was rather widespread. Leading the move down were the steel stocks (-3.1%), followed by the homebuilders (-1.9%), networkers (-1.9%), paper stocks (-1.8%), brokers (-1.7%), metals and mining (-1.7%), disk drives (-1.4%), airlines (-1.4%), semiconductors (-1.4%), internets (-1.3%), computer tech (-1.3%), REITs (-1.2%), computer hardware (-1.2%) and telecom (-1.1%).

Energy prices near flat. Crude oil made a strong move above $60, but finished up only a few cents at $59.89/barrel. Gasoline gained a couple of cents to $1.61/gallon, but natural gas was lower at $7.83/mmBTU. The dollar index hung onto slight gains at 84.88. Gold and silver continue to be strong, gold moving up to $667/ounce and silver to $13.83/ounce.

BMB Note: Not a real impressive week for the bulls, and today wasn’t pretty at all. A lot of groups got smacked pretty good, but the indices are still holding uptrends/support levels, so I’m not sure there’s too much to get excited about just yet. Things can change on a dime in this market, and they have been, so they may very well change again soon.

Today doesn’t do a lot to change my opinion - I was very hesitant to buy stocks, so now I’m even more hesitant. This market doesn’t look shortable yet either, so I remain pretty neutral. Maybe the selling today is a hint of more to come, and maybe not.

Another pretty unimpressive start to the day, as the indices have slipped from their slightly positive open, and are now huddled around the UNCH mark. A/D lines have retreated as well, and now sit right around flat.

In the groups, a pretty even split, but not many big movers. Chemicals and semiconductors show slight gains, while steel stocks and networkers are giving some back.

Bonds are lower, and yields are higher. Energy prices are flat. The dollar is a little higher, but so are gold and silver.