Jerry Samet
10-31-2020, 12:38 PM
The market got hit pretty hard again yesterday. The major averages opened lower and worked their way down most of the day. A little late buying saw them finish off their lows, but the declines were substantial. The Nasd averages closed low in their intraday trading ranges while the New York averages finished in about the middle of their trading ranges. The Nasd averages were the weakest due to selling in big cap tech stocks. The COMPQ and the NDX fell 2.45% and 2.62% respectively. The SPX lost 1.21%. Volume was mixed. It was lower by 1.89% on the New York and higher by 13.35% on the Nasd. Leading stocks sold off as well with the leaders index off by 3.79% on the day. The index fell below its 50dma in what is usually considered a death knell for a leading stock. Volume was much higher and about average. It was the highest volume in the leaders index in weeks. The market weakness continued on Friday with substantial losses in the market averages, particularly the Nasd averages. There were several important tech companies reporting earnings after the close on Thursday that were not warmly welcomed by the market. There was clearly large institutional selling yesterday and any semblance of a market rally died. The poorly confirmed follow throughs on the Dow and the COMPQ have clearly failed, as I have been saying for about a week. Now we have to see how far the market will fall before it tried to put in a bottom. There is a lot of uncertainty now due to the election and the increase in Covid cases. Right now the best course of action is to watch from the sidelines until the picture becomes clearer. Jerry