Stock market outlook: more range trading

Of course everyone wants to know where the stock market is headed next, but the outlook for the coming weeks if not months is quite simple: more range trading. Traders and short-term speculators push the market up to the upper end of the trading range, then flip over and push it back down to the lower end of the trading range, rinse and repeat. Traders make money on the relatively small daily moves and the brokers make money from the commissions and other fees for all of this excess trading.

 

The current trading range for the Dow is roughly 12,600/12,700 to 13,300/13,400.

 

We are approaching the lower end of the range, so a bounce is quite possible any day now.

 

Sure, Europe is an ongoing drag, but that is one of the factors that keeps the market in a trading range. The daily news from Europe is simple one of the "tools" used by traders and short-term speculators to manipulate the market.

 

Meanwhile, true investors should focus on their dividend checks and the longer-term outlook and leave short-term market moves to those who actually like that kind of thing (and have a talent for it – which excludes me.)

-- Jack Krupansky