NASDAQ poised for... the unknown

Okay, the long holiday weekend is over and now it's time for the full complement of tanned and rested market participants to get back to work. Within a few days we will know whether the modest rise in NASDAQ last week was real, another head-fake, or just volatility in a slow market.

 

NASDAQ futures are up moderately, once again on no significant news, so once again the question is whether futures indicate a true trading bias or are merely "bait" to get people to lean the wrong direction before the deep-pocket traders, speculators, and investors weigh in with real orders as the day progresses.

 

Today is the first trading day after the long holiday weekend, so it could be choppy and simply represent people "testing" the market before they get more serious latter in the week.

 

We're in the final days of the "sell in May and go away" anxiety, although the reality is that "sell in May" can sometimes extend to the middle of June.

 

The next revision of Q1 GDP will come out on Thursday. It will probably be revised upwards, but still be small enough to depress people, at least superficially. Still, this is already old news, so the reaction could actually be the reverse of the news per se, what they call "sell on rumor, buy on news."

 

My bias is for NASDAQ to stumble upwards over the coming month. I have most of my core positions established, so mostly I am interested in solid stocks which get hit with 10% dips based merely on the fact that hedge funds do it simply because they can.

 

-- Jack Krupansky