As I have mentioned before, the most notable characteristic of the market action so far in 2012 is the tenacious underlying support. The bears simply can't gain any downside traction. They had minor success Thursday when the market trended down most of the day, but the dip buyers are very active today and aren't allowing much slippage.
Even though the indices aren't doing anything, there are some pockets of good trading action. We aren't seeing the highly correlated action that plagued us last year. There is also good stock picking, and that helps the mood and keeps the dip-buyers interested.
The big theme that traders are jumping on is anything related to Facebook. Some of the names seeing action include Quepasa Corp. (QPSA), GSV Capital (GSVC), Renren (RENN), Zynga (ZNGA), E-Commerce China Dangdang (DANG), LinkedIn (LNKD) and Pandora (P).
Theme plays have been missing from this market for quite a while, so it's refreshing to see that sort of speculative action increase. Real live people and their emotions and psychology are at work here, not a bunch of bloodless computers.
Even with the good trading action under the surface, the indices still look vulnerable and I'm inclined to try some index shorts -- especially if we retest the lows -- but talk of a deal in Greece this weekend is probably keeping the bears partially sidelined.
