Today seemed strange to me. I guess the pre-market skittishness over what the Fed was or was not going to do should have been a clue. It felt like more of a a buyers' strike than a bear rampage. Although the indices closed on their lows and took out yesterday's lows volume contracted and the VIX didn't spike as high as it did yesterday. One thing was clear though, financials stunk up the joint today. The only worse performing sector was airlines. The BKX has shown great relative strength of late (thanks to the short-selling ban?) but it's starting to slip now.

Here's the VIX:

T2108 has slipped even more and now sits at 2.33

Here are the index charts which each broke yesterday's low:



No changes
| Trend | Nasdaq | S&P 500 | Russell 2000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long-Term | Down | Down | Down |
| Intermediate | Down | Down | Down |
| Short-term | Down | Down | Down |
(+) Indicates an upward reclassification today
(-) Indicates a downward reclassification today
Lat Indicates a Lateral trend
*** I'm simply using the indices' relations to their 200, 50 and 10-day moving averages to tell me the long, intermediate and short-term trends, respectively.




















The indices are also way below their mov. avg envelopes plus being temporarily oversold by several indicators. Maybe we'll get a bounce when Bernanke announces a rate cut.
Dear Trader Mike:
It's gone beyond hedge funds liquidating. I think countries are now liquidating (i.e. Iceland).
What do you think Mike?
B
It has to do with Bush and Ben.. Have you noticed that anytime they speak we get a sell-off. Today we were lucky enough to get both of them back to back..
Dear Trader Mike,
i was just wondering if you could please give me a breif description as to why the maket is crashing so badly?
and how badly will it effect countries?
many thanks,
Rommy