The S&P 500 closed today at its lowest point since October 12, 2017. It dipped lower on February 9, 2018 but bounced big intraday and finished well off the lows. The Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) is in much worse shape and has now surpassed the 20% pullback threshold that is used by the business media as the definition of a bear market.
There is slew of negatives out there right now that will illustrate how poor this market has been acting but what is most important is that there are no good signs of technical support yet. The biggest positive is that negative sentiment is extreme. The mood doesn't get much worse than this which suggests that a bounce may be near but there is no way to use such anecdotal evidence with any precision.
What has been most notable about this extremely poor price action is that there really isn't any obvious news that is driving it. There is talk about China trade, interest rates, the Fed, political issues, the potential for a recession and valuations but it is all rather nebulous and uncertain.
What is driving this action is negative price momentum. The selling is feeling on itself and that is all that matters. The individual merits of stocks are irrelevant and the fact that some stocks are extremely cheap doesn't matter. What mattes is that people are afraid of losing even more money so they are selling to escape the misery.
I'd like to predict that it is going to end soon but there isn't any basis for such a prediction. There is no doubt that things are extremely oversold and conditions are ripe for a bounce but that was also true last week.
The best thing you can do is stay patient, protect capital and wait for stock picking to matter.
Have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow.
