I don’t know if I’ve seen a market more boring than this current one. The sideways action just continues day after day. The S&P 500 is basically unchanged from its early June levels. And the action during these last two weeks shows why I like to take these heavy earnings weeks off. They are generally choppy as hell, with gap openings on a daily basis. (Today was a great example of the grief and money that rule #1 can save you. I just laugh every morning when I see these gaps.) Over the last two weeks the Dow is down 0.08%, the S&P 500 is down 1.66%, and the NASDAQ is down 1.87%. This may be fun for daytraders, but surely not for anyone else.
The current technical picture is still ambiguous. The NASDAQ is trying very hard to hold its March-July trendline. It put in a nice (too?) predictable bounce just above that trendline earlier this week, but that island top stopped the bounce in its tracks today. I have nothing to say about the Dow and S&P 500 besides ‘ugh!’ These indices have simply flatlined. There’s not much to do until this trading range is broken. Stay tuned.
