NASDAQ still struggling to seek direction

It kind of looks like traders will try to take advantage of a little unrest in Hong Kong to try to shake the markets out of their narrow range trading. Besides, a little more democracy in Hong Kong and China would be a GOOD thing!

 

Neither Thursday nor Friday was a solid indicator of the underlying market trend. We do remain stuck in a trading range. We're actually still more towards the upper edge of the range, so it's no surprise that traders would try to "test" further down in the range.

 

NASDAQ futures are down moderately sharply, indicating a significant dip at the open, but... the question is whether people pile on with more selling sentiment, or... whether they buy on that dip. We could see only early selling pressure, and then a gradual if only partial recovery for the rest of the day. Or... we could see a more dramatic test towards the lower edge of the trading range.

 

Our job as investors is to see though all the daily fluctuations of the market, and even to see beyond the short-term trends and short-term influences. The Fed October meeting will be behind us in a matter of weeks. There is always plenty of noise out there; once again it is the job of investors to see beyond the noise, not get distracted by it.

 

-- Jack Krupansky