A poor GDP report, a mediocre ADP jobs report and anticipation of what the Fed might say later today have slowed the bulls down today. Research In Motion (RIMM) is seeing a sell-the-news reaction and is a source of hilarity on Twitter. Amazon (AMZN) is fading after a big gap-up open. Breadth is running 1700 gainers to 3300 decliners, which is the worst in a while. Gold and silver are leading, primarily due to the weak GDP reading. Small-caps are the primary laggard.
As I discussed in my opening post, this market has become challenging even for the bulls because there has been so little rest. We haven't had much of an opportunity to buy pullbacks or bases, so I can't say that this action is not welcomed to some degree.
I've made no new buys today and have sold down more positions. My cash level is becoming quite high, even though I still maintain a mostly bullish bias.
The Fed is going to be particularly interesting this afternoon. In some ways the weak fourth-quarter GDP may be a market positive as it keeps the Fed in the "accommodative policy" business; however, there are whispers that inflation may not be completely dead.
I'm going to stay a bit defensive for now and watch for better setups to develop.
