NASDAQ awaits direction for the new year

NASDAQ is still locked within a trading range with little sense of direction. It touched a high for 2014 slightly above 4800, but had no momentum to speak of. The Santa Claus rally and end of year window dressing and tax loss selling  petered out, and now people are wondering what's next.

Technically Friday was the first trading session of the year, but it was sandwiched into a holiday week right ahead of a weekend, so I wouldn't read much into it at all. Today is really the first real trading session of the year after the holidays. Even so, it will take a couple of days for all of big dogs and heavy hitters of the hedge funds to get back to their desks and into a groove after the extended holiday break. I personally don''t consider the Monday of the first full trading week of a new year to be an indicator of what's next. Let's see where things are come Wednesday.

Even though to economy continues to plod along just fine, it does so in a semi-sluggish and inconsistent manner which ADHD-afflicted Wall Street traders can't get their heads around, so we don't get any consistency in trading activity. That's why we have all this start-go-stop, rinse and repeat trading action.

NASDAQ futures are down modestly, indicating a modest slip at the open. Whether people pile on for a significant sell-off or buy the dip for a reversal into a rally is a coin flip.

Oil (OIL) seems poised for a run down to $50, but not with a lot of conviction. I would buy again at $50.

I'm looking at NVIDIA (NVDA) and FedEx (FDX), as well as some dip purchases of Solar City (SCTY), 3D Systems (DDD), and Stratasys (SSYS). I may sell some of my Cypress Semiconductor (CY) to lock in profits and raise cash reserves.

-- Jack Krupansky