Stock Market Opens 2014 in a Minor Key

By: PhilStockWorld

Courtesy of Doug Short: On Tuesday the S&P 500 closed out 2013 with a major bang, setting another all-time high. Today, the first market day of 2014, the index opened in a minor key with selling pressure from the opening bell. It hit its -0.14% intraday high in the opening minutes and sold off to its -1.12% mid-afternoon intraday low. By the closing bell it had trimmed the loss to 0.89%.

Before the market opened, the Weekly Jobless Claims missed expectations and its 4-week moving average is almost back to where it was at the end of 2014. On a more positive note, the ISM Manufacturing Index showed continued growth in December, although fractionally lower than in November.

According to the U.S. Treasury, the yield on the 10-year note closed at 3.00, down 4 bps from its interim high on Tuesday.

Here is a 15-minute look at the holiday-interrupted week so far.

Volume picked up from the holiday lull but remained below its 50-day moving average.

Here is a longer perspective, starting with the all-time high prior to the Great Recession.

For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.

- Phil

www.philstockworld.com

Philip R. Davis is a founder of Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com), a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders. Mr. Davis is a serial entrepreneur, having founded software company Accu-Title, a real estate title insurance software solution, and is also the President of the Delphi Consulting Corp., an M&A consulting firm that helps large and small companies obtain funding and close deals. He was also the founder of Accu-Search, a property data corporation that was sold to DataTrace in 2004 and Personality Plus, a precursor to eHarmony.com. Phil was a former editor of a UMass/Amherst humor magazine and it shows in his writing -- which is filled with colorful commentary along with very specific ideas on stock option purchases (Phil rarely holds actual stocks). Visit: Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com)

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