Gap-down opens on Monday morning usually attract some dip-buyers, but they are shying away so far this morning. The news flow is just too gloomy, and conditions are too uncertain, for folks to even trust in a small bounce. The market is already making a new intraday low as I write this, although breadth is off its worst levels.
Thus far, we're seeing than four losers for each gainer. Gold, fertilizers and agriculture are leading, and banks and oil look particularly poor. There is no true leadership -- just a few very small pockets of trading action, as we're witnessing in small biotechs and fertilizers.
With these new intraday lows, I'm concerned the market could have a trend day, and I'm not much interested in trying to fight that. I'm holding a few small biotech names, and I have a number of stocks on my watch list. These include Nationstar Mortgage (NSM), which is my stock of the week, and Acquity (AQ) -- but I'm not buying until they begin acting better.
Stay defensive. This is very ugly.
