Afternoon recovery limits damage from morning sell-off

Stocks bounced back, especially in the last hour (shown in the BigCharts widget in the sidebar). Dow had been down over 200 early in the day, the last hour rally brought it to essentially break even (down 6 for nitpickers). Decliners led advancers 3-2 but NAZ rose 11. Banks, as seen in the S&P 500 FINANCIALS INDEX, led the way down in the AM & recovered in the PM, ending down only 1.64.


Oil has suffered a steep sell of from its peak last summer. Today's decline of 2 is a small part of the story. Below is a chart for the OIL ETF which shows how severe the sell off has been. This index plummeted from a high near 90 to a close today of 16.87. Excess enthusiasm last summer is part of the story, however a larger part is the growing fears of a terrible economic recession/depression.

CLH09.NYM

...Crude Oil Mar 09

...34.29

.. 1.65 ......(4.6%)

OIL ETF --- 1 year





MLPs continue to defy downward pressures in the rest of the markets. In the last 2 weeks, they have been establishing 200 (really 198) as a floor which has not been broken. Today MLPs were strong, up 4.05, taking it over 203 in a weak market.


Alerian MLP Index --- 2 weeks




REITs, junk bonds & even VIX were weak. Masco (MAS), after cutting their div last night, sold off 55¢ to 6.90. Last year it was over 30. This is the third high profile Dividend Aristocrat to cut in the last month, joining Pfizer (PFE) & State Street (STT). General Electric (GE), recently reaffirmed their intention to continue their div. Time will tell. Even just maintaining the div will take them off the Dividend Aristocrat list, they'll need at least one div above 31¢ this year to remain in the group.

Tomorrow the markets will try again to make up their minds whether the stimulus packages is a plus or minus.