Just Go Somewhere Already!!!

Since Dec 2, which is 14 trading days, the Dow has been in a tight range between 8400 and 8900. After 2 full months of incredible swings and volatility, this is almost boring! So, what's the big move going to be? Up or down? Or do we keep going sideways for another month?

The markets have held up very well through a lot of bad news in the past 2 weeks. Can it continue? The buying that's been taking place hasn't been the big boys. The institutional buyers are still on the sidelines. That can't help but lead me to believe they're waiting for a better entry point. It may not come in the next week or two due to the holidays, but it'll be coming soon.

The Santa Claus rally hasn't materialized, unless you count the rally that took place Thanksgiving week and the following week.

This week the Fed lowered short term rates to essentially zero. Wall Street rallied hard on that news. But in the past 2 days has given back most of that. Personally I don't see how 0 percent interest rates are a good thing. It shows desperation and that the fed is running out of ammunition. They now claim to have a couple of things up their sleeve, but again, it'll be out of desperation. I don't see how providing cheap money is going to help in the long run. That's what got us into a lot of this mess to begin with.

And what's up with the automakers? Who knows. The White House is playing it slow. Now the latest word is they'll push for an "orderly or organized bankruptcy", whatever that means. GM has announced they'll be shutting down for a month and Chrysler is doing the same thing starting this Friday I believe. I don't know... I still think if one of the big 3 fails it would be a good thing. We can't let all 3 go down the tubes, we need an automaker to call out own. We can't depend on foreign automakers even if they're building in this country to keep us rolling.

I was at dinner with a couple of coworkers last night and one was telling me he went looking at houses in Florida last week while he was down there and the prices he was seeing were amazing. 2500 sqft house with an inground pool for 100 grand. For that price I might even be willing to move to Florida. Nah, I like the change of seasons.

Alright, we'll see what Friday brings us. It's options expiration day and could be interesting. With 2 short weeks coming up and a lot of the big boys taking time off, it could be boring... or it could be another chance to rally.