Fear Back in the Market

By Jim Farrish | June 09, 2008 | 9:08 AM | 2 Comments

I am reminded of the line in the movie “Top Gun”, after they buzz the tower and get yelled at by the commanding officer, “Thanks Mav, I really enjoyed that.” Friday was one of those kinda of days. Needless to say the selling offset the Thursday buying and put fear back into the market. Looking at the charts and reports over the weekend didn’t improve anything. The interesting part was how much of Friday’s selling was the result of rumors and asinine comments. They aren’t worth rehashing, but when investors are skittish it is easy to get them to react.

So let’s look at what scanned its way to the top. I’m sure you will be shocked to see (AMEX: USO), US Oil Fund as one of the leaders for the last week. One I did find of interest was (AMEX: FXP), ProShares UltraShort China 25 Fund. Commodities (NYSE: GSG), (AMEX: DBC) and oil led the list as you would expect from last weeks activity. Agriculture rallied (AMEX: DBA) bouncing off support near $35. One day doesn’t make this a trend so I am willing to see how it plays out.

Yield on the 10 year Treasury Bond dropped to 3.93% again as the fear drove money to safety. Technically the trend is still in play for rates to move higher. The short term volatility from the equity market has created volatility for the yield on Treasury’s as well.

(AMEX: DUG), Proshares UltraShort Oil & Gas sold off after breaking above the $30 mark. The extreme volatility in the oil sector currently is making this a tough play. There was some profit taking late in the trading day on Friday as the fund bounce back from the early sell off closing at $28.23. It will be interesting this week to say the least. Watch for comments out of Washington on this matter. It will have little to no impact, but there will be plenty said. Lehman comments on oil at $150 by July 4th got a quick start Friday and the issues in the Middle East are far from over. Any plays here are going to be bumpy.

Practice patience here, let the noise settle and then look for opportunities.

Are You Buying? Jim: Based upon your scans, are you saying these ETF's are a buy or just for watching? Submitted by Guy Lerner on Mon, 2008/06/09 - 11:01am » reply |