zeev, does today's action give you pause in your thoughts about a rally?
this from streetinsight:
Now this isn't the way the bulls want to start a new year. After a hard reversal of this morning's promising open, the market appears to be on a rather slippery slope despite big losses in energy futures. The market's swoon feels worse than the large-cap indices suggest, and that's because breadth is pretty bad.
I'm sure that seasonal factors such as the "January Effect" are at work today, but some very sobering data crossed my desk earlier this morning, and I'm sure it's taking a toll on investors' psyche.
Over the past six years, there has been incredible downward pressure on the Nasdaq in the January to February period. From the highs of January to the lows of February, the Nasdaq has doled out double-digit losses in all but one of the last six years -- and in that year the decline approached 10%.
Thanks to the good people at CS First Boston, here is the data:
# 1999: -12.6%;
# 2000: -9.5%;
# 2001: -32.6%;
# 2002: -22.5%;
# 2003: -15.3%; and
# 2004: -12.0%.
Ouch.
Of course, these were not normal years, with the unwinding of the bubble taking a considerable toll. In addition, the data is also representative of a strong January start in most of these years. Nevertheless, the data is pretty scary.
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