by Matt Walters

With it being the week of Christmas, you can expect investors to take some time off this week, especially after the year the market has had - so don't expect a lot of heavy trading, because it isn't likely to happen.

Today was a light volume day, that continues to trade in a consolidated manner. We'll see if this week brings us the Christmas rally, much like Thankgiving provided us with last month.

We won't be making as many postings this week, but will continue to follow the markets closely.

Here's the Nasdaq and S&P charts...

by Matt Walters

Big time play by the Fed to assuage investor fears over the putrid economic conditions the United States is currently facing. Cutting rates between 75 and 100 basis points is huge and will likely reverberate across international  markets. Its likely too, that other countries will step up their efforts in rate cutting. But the language of the FOMC Statement was very clear and that is, they will do everything possible to keep market conditions from spiraling out of control. Which honestly scares me, because what the government has done up to this point clearly hasn't done much to fix the problems that we are facing, and I remain skeptical as to whether it will do anything in the future either.

On another note, I think our economy would be better served if we could have fewer public officials asserting their opinions and viewpoints to the media and the country at large. Today you have the Fed stating that they have not run out of ammunition in dealing with economic problems, but over in Chi-Town you have Obama stating the exact opposite. Now, there's no doubt that he will soon be our President and will have the responsibility of leading our country, but he isn't yet, and the lack of coordination between him and the other government entities, namely the Fed and Treasury, brews more confusion in the broader markets.

by Matt Walters

From a technical standpoint, another solid day for the market even though the major indices finished in the Red. Reason why we say this is that in spite of one of the worst financial scams of all-time with Madoff robbing investors of roughly $50 billion - and yet we have a light volume day, which indicates that the market is not all that disturbed by the news.

Its also going to be interesting to see which direction the market goes in this pivotal juncture it finds itself at. If it can break the 50-day moving average, it would improve bullish sentiment greatly, whereas if it breaks the upward trendline, you may see another wave of selling.

Here's the Nasdaq and S&P charts...