May 27, 2008
Though we finished the day with respectable gains, there was a sense of hesitancy by the bulls as it was a “wait-and-see” attitude taken until the end, when buyers starting deploying capital more aggressively. At the end of the day though, volume was weak and buyers aren’t entirely convinced that the sell-off is necessarily over. For the large part, the one thing that investors will look at and base their decisions on going forward, will be whether oil is up or down. If oil is down, investors will look to buy, and if oil is up, investors will look to sell. As simple as it sounds, that is the main theme of today’s market and each market session going forward. Items like existing home sales improving are nice, but it more ‘feel-good’ then anything else. Consumer confidence is low, but who isn’t feeling the pinch at the pump and thinking of more ways to conserve energy for the wallet’s sake. These items alone at this juncture in the markets won’t move them in any dramatic way. Its oil – we’ve reached a point where the bulls demand is for it to go down if they are going to continue to buy stocks.
Here’s the NASDAQ and S&P Charts…