A steady drip of selling continues to hit speculative stocks and small-caps in particular. It has been ongoing for weeks now, and it is wearing out many market participants who have been holding on and hoping that a bounce will come as the quarter ends and the rotational action cools off.
Although you wouldn't know it from looking at the indices, this has been bear market action for many individual stocks. Like most of the major corrections in the last decade, however, it has been a rotational correction, and much of the damage has been covered up as lagging stocks perk up as leaders collapse.
It is extremely difficult to accurately time when this sort of market environment finally bottoms out but what typically happens is that the bulls that have been holding on give up out of disgust and dismay. They don't panic sell into a sudden drop. They just grow tired of fighting the market for days and weeks and finally throw in a towel.
This sort of bottoming action is quite different than the classic example of panic selling at the wrong time, but bottoms tend to occur with a whimper rather than a bang.
I believe we are close to capitulation for many market players right now, but that does not mean that we will see a quick, energetic bounce. I am working hard on shopping lists, but I see no reason to jump in yet as the S&P 500 is hitting a new intraday low as I write.
I've made a couple of small buys Tuesday morning in Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) , PAVmed (PAVM) , and Aslan Pharmaceuticals (ASLN) , but I'm not putting any major funds to work yet.
