Sideways????????? Never in my memory has there been a time with 5-10% swings multiple times. That is large to me and a great range. Will 2008 be the same? Don't know and this can be the elusive triple bottom trap and or just another buy the dip opportunity. I really don't give shit just as long as the roller coaster continues and its a traders market. Crap I'm happy with 100-200 point "sideways" action, let alone 1000-1300 point swings every 2-3 months. If bears really want the blood to flow and screw the bulls, don't underestimate a global disaster, terror attack, etc... situation to happen. You can forget politics, economics, FED B.S, inflation. Shit, set off a small nuke in Pakistan or something. That would really set off a flushout in the markets we haven't seen in 7 years. With that said, we snapback next week at some time and the games continue.
let the games begin, index futures up from friday. this feels to me like one of those up in the evening, up 1% by morning and 2%+ by the close scenarios. i could be spectacularly wrong here, but going to throw it out there! good luck to all in the coming week.
Market is tough to go down. Its has shown exceptional resilience. Shorting is very dangerous with all the rate cuts and economic packages in Jan 2008. Its can kill your shorts and hand you down your asses in a New York minute.
XLF closed higher for 3 days running on 530 million shares traded (cumulative). It was higher on Friday in light of a 250 point drubbing on the Dow. That should say something. Financials led the markets down, they will be the first sign the big buyers are coming back. That and the upcoming Bush and Bernanke stimulus packages, I wouldn't want to be holding short as we get into late January (State of the Union and Fed meeting).
My two cents is this thing would be at 1300 if the bears werent scared to death that the fed is going to screw them.
JUST TO PUT THINGS INTO greater context. the bear of 2000-2002 had almost a 4,000 point drop in the dow; 11,100 to 7,200. that was because of a technology bubble where all someone had to do was press a sell button and they were liquidated;not so with a real estate bubble. they are much worse and take longer to clear up. not to mention credit is harder to get. i play bounces but know full well that holding to long can be disaterous. we did not bottom,perhaps temporarily.
This has definitely been a downtrending market...SPX down to ?1370 or so. Quite the drop from over 1510 not long ago. I say sentiment is presently overly bearish and we will get some buying action...or a retracement. Has to come at some point, why not January?