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Technicals Portend Bear Market in Small Caps and Transports
The Dow managed to finish off this Friday with a loss of less than 500 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down just 496.87 points. So I guess the headline can be: “We Avoided a 500 Point Decline!”. At one point, the Dow was better than 550 points in the red. But, when you close that close to your low of the day, within 10 percentage points of the low, that is a very weak close. The Dow finished the day weak, the week weak, and it is a very weak month. In fact, the weakest indexes continue to be the Russell 2000 – I’ve been talking about the weakness in the small caps. That index is now down better than 19% from its peak just about 4 months ago. So we’re almost officially in bear market territory. We’ll probably be there by Monday, judging by the technicals.
Possible Black Monday?
The other index that is leading the way down is the Dow Jones Transports. This index is now down better than 18% from its peak. Both the Transports and the Russell 2000 are at the lowest levels of the year. They took out the lows from the earlier decline that happened at the beginning of the year, so the Dow and the NASDAQ have yet to take out those lows set earlier in the year, but I believe they will. In fact, they may even take them out before the end of the year. Monday, again, is looking extremely weak. I’ve been talking about this all quarter, where I think there is a potential for a Black Monday type of event. Obviously, we’re running out of Mondays this year. Both Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve fall on a Monday and there will probably be very light trading going on, so potentially the markets could see a lot of selling if there are not enough people there to buy.
Appearance on Countdown to the Closing Bell this Monday
I will be on Fox Business News, The Countdown to the Closing Bell this Monday, with Liz Claman. Maybe if I get lucky we’ll have a Black Monday on a day that I happen to be on television. I will be there for the final hour of the day and often times, the biggest part of the sell-off on big down days happens at the very last hour, so I’ll be live on Fox Business for that potential big drop. Make sure to tune in live.
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