As usual, people see something and reply to it, without reading the rest of the thread. As a result, after whitster's excellent discussion of the semantics, people continued to misunderstand. Yes, there was "selling pressure" today, but at a certain point, the sellers agreed to a price that was low enough for a "buyer" to buy the stock from them. Otherwise, there would not have been any transactions today. Some claim that these "buyers" were only market makers. Well, these are institutions and they are certainly not interested in taking big losses. So, they bought at a certain level that was lower than yesterday, but it was still deemed to be a point that was worth buying. It sounds like no one really knows...
<i>"It sounds like no one really knows..."</i> That is very true. No one ever knows for sure. What can surmise is this: no selling climax occurred today. More selling is probable, perhaps to considerably lower lows from here. Again, no one really knows. We'll see a true test on the next session following a reflex rally. If they rally hard and hold the next day or three, uptrend resumes. If instead they bounce hard and sell off the next day or two, today was merely a warmup for what follows then.
You can't always equate the entire day's volume on a down day to all selling.... A lot of it is turnover from automated high frequency trading. I think that on volatile days like today you get a ton of arb action.
The Dow dropped/was clubbed for -311 points on what is listed on the NYSE website as 6,055, 895,000 shares. If you think that's a positive you need to see a shrink.
its wonderful. it means NYX earnings will be nice. price and volume correlations derived here are tedious at best. Who the hell knows. In the last 2 years I've scrutinized a correlation to volume and price, I've seen nothing consistent enough to determine it a worthwhile study. Look at AMZN -- it looked like a classic blowoff top with buyer exhaustion possible in last earnings ( 3 months ago ). Yet prices did stick and it poised to move higher. The reality is that almost all large selloffs in this bull market happen on huge volume, and that this latest buying spree to new highs was on relatively low volume. It didn't mean the bull market was over last time, nor will it likely mean the same this time.
Comparing the price/volume action of AMZN to the NYSE is dodgy at best. AMZN has a short position of over 25%. This in addition to company performance is obviously fueling the rally in that stock. Do you honestly think AMZN deserve this high a multiple? Flogging Harry Potter books ain't exactly curing cancer.