Last weekend I pointed out how the market was in a confirmed rally after following-through on Thursday. This week got off to a roaring start with the NASDAQ jumping up 68.64 Monday and another 14.30 Tuesday. However, volume was disappointingly light. Wednesday saw some selling but nothing horrible. Unfortunately while I was flying through snowstorms before landing in glorious 75 degree weather Thursday the NASDAQ dropped 43.53 on heavier volume.
Not good.
Today showed a nice gain in the morning with selling taking control pretty much all afternoon. If volume is high into the close it will be a very gloomy weekend as it would put a nail in the coffin of this 5 day old rally. Not a killer-- but enough to make a trader unable to concentrate on fishing Saturday and Sunday. As of this moment, with 30 minutes left in trading, volume looks pretty weak. Good.
One always has to be careful when determining what causes market moves. Most of the reporting on the subject falls under a heading I call Arkansas Marksmanship. ArkMark is when you fire eight shots into the side of the barn and then go over with a can of paint and a brush and paint a target around your grouping. Grinning you tell your friends, "Look, eight bullseyes!" This usually sounds like this, "The market today was down on war jitters." Or, "The market was up today on news that housing starts were up 0.1%."
So, I don't want to say that young Barry O'Bama caused this sell-off. But, he told the Money Honey(TM) at CNBC last night, in an interview traders have seen a dozen times today, that he thinks capital gains taxes need to go up 67%. So, if your livelihood is made in the markets, it isn't a very uplifting notion that your taxes under the leading candidate for POTUS will crush the flippin' life out of your business. How does Braniac know that a 67% tax increase is no biggie? Liberal billionaire Warren Buffet tol' him so.
