| Author | Message | ||
     Entrepreneur Kurra Bewarse Username: Entrepreneur Post Number: 3966 Registered: 05-2011 Posted From: 24.164.46.35 Rating: N/A |
Market Briefing: Small caps pacing tentative recovery bid On most days, the current standing of the major indices wouldn't be seen as a good thing. This isn't most days, however. The Nasdaq Composite is down 2.2% but it had been down 4.9%. The S&P 500 is down 2.2% but it had been down 4.0%. The Russell 2000 is up 0.8% but it had been down 2.8%. The stock market is in a recovery mode of sorts, trying to rebound from some short-term oversold conditions and double-digit losses in the first three weeks of trading. Even so, there is bound to be some nervousness that this recovery try won't stick since the market has succumbed to late-day selling pressure most days in this new year. Seeing that it doesn't happen again will be the start of believing in a rebound effort, but there is a lot of trading time left today. Strikingly, the micro-cap and small-cap stocks are the ones exhibiting the most relative strength, most likely because they are the ones that have suffered the largest percentage declines in a sell-off that has been accented with serious multiple compression, particularly in stocks that traded on a multiple of sales because they didn't have any earnings. Most S&P 500 sectors have pared larger losses, but notably, the defensive-oriented utilities (-3.0%) and consumer staples (-2.3%) sectors are setting new lows for the day as the broader market attempts to recover. |