I feel like we're in the doldrums again. Oh, well. Not every day can be exciting in the markets.
We shot higher this morning, but as I suspected might happen, the rally started to fade. Indeed, we went from up over 100 on the Dow to down over 50, but the magical afternoon wizards came out and pushed things higher, closing the Dow up 41 for the day. The big news, I suppose, is that Ambac finally let the cat out of the bag and announced they were selling off stock to bolster their finances. So at least the Ambac-based afternoon rallies are behind us since the rumor has morphed into fact.
It's easy to miss the swoon we had recently, but I imagine we'll continue marking time on Thursday as we await Friday morning's jobs report.
Looking at the bigger Russell picture, the range from about $690 to $725 has been broken to the downside and – hopefully – retraced with this morning's run-up.
The Dow Industrials, however, didn't break quite as badly. In fact, we're still pretty plainly inside a range between 12,050 and 12,750. It's entirely possible the jobs report on Friday could spell relief for the bulls, but I would be stunned (and a lot more) if the market managed to get above 12,750 anytime soon.
The S&P 500 is a bit harder to read, but I'm still going to call it range-bound. The dip beneath the lower portion of the range yesterday wasn't definitive enough. Breaking beneath the psychologically significant 1,300 level is required for us to see things get interesting again. The markets – – like the Democratic contest for the nomination – – are starting to get tedious.
Finally, gold (and oil, for that matter) had a strong up day, but I still view this market at a turning point. That's certainly how my trades are positioned.
Not a very long post today, but I'm going to sign off for now. Thanks for stopping by, and have a good evening!
