August 4, 2014

The Near-Term Forecast Calls for Continued Selling

From InvestorPlace

The Near-Term Forecast Calls for Continued Selling
Stay out of the way of this looming pain

Aug 4, 2014  |  By Sam Collins, InvestorPlace Chief Technical Analyst

On the back of a tepid jobs report on Friday, stocks traded higher for just a short time before plunging for the second consecutive day. Both the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 recorded their worst weekly losses in over two years.

Stocks seem to drop into a vacuum with few buyers available to stop the landslide of selling. Investors, cautious over the timing of a Fed hike in interest rates and rattled by the Israel-Gaza conflict and the default of Argentine sovereign debt, as well as a potential revival of the Cold War with Russia, seemed in no mood to go bargain-hunting. This disinterest is a change from prior periods of foreign crisis, when opportunistic traders would jump at the chance to buy on weakness.

The jobs report, which showed a rise of 209,000 in nonfarm payrolls, missed expectations. This relative softness gives the Fed breathing room to wait longer before raising rates.

Utility stocks and consumer staples, widely considered defensive sectors, were the only broad groups to show gains on Friday.

At the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 69.93 points to 16,493.37, the S&P 500 lost 5.52 points, closing at 1925.15, and Nasdaq fell 17.13 to 4352.64. The Russell 2000 lost 5.21 points and closed at 1114.86. The NYSE’s primary market traded 791 million shares with total volume of 3.8 billion shares. Nasdaq crossed a total of 2 billion shares. Decliners outpaced advancers by about 1.8-to-1 on both exchanges.

For the week: The DJIA fell 2.8%, the S&P 500 lost 2.7%, Nasdaq was down 2.2%, and the Russell 2000 fell 2.6%.

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