Late day buyers limit market losses

Markets sold off at the opening & continued in the red all day. Considering the 100+ decline for the Dow early in the day, it finished in good shape (the last 2 weeks have been nothing but stellar, especially coming off an already overbought market). The daily movements for Dow & NAZ are shown in the widgets on the right. Dow dropped 67 but just below the important 10K line, decliners over advancers 3-2 ratio was more moderate than earlier in the day & NAZ was off 16.

Dow Jones Industrials --- 2 weeks




Banks had a tough day but that's coming off an outstanding 7 month run.

S&P 500 FINANCIALS INDEX

Value 204.76

Change -5.53

% Change -2.6%

Even on a down day, MLPs rose. The Alerian MLP Index gained .50 to the 262s. At the start of Sep 2008, the Index had fallen to 270. It's recovered about all of the loss since then. REITs trimmed their losses from earlier in the day, the average fell 4+. Junk bonds rose again, generally to new highs for this year. The VIX, volatility index, fell a fraction to the low 21s, another new low in over a year. Meanwhile, Treasuries sold off. The yield on the 10-year Treasury bond rose 5 basis points to 5.42%, approaching its high in the last month.

Alerian MLP Index --- YTD




Dow Jones REIT Index --- YTD




10-Year Treasury Yld Index - 1 month





Oil continued strong, extending its gains, reaching another new high for 2009 & clearly above its recent multi month trading band. Gold continues north of 1050.

CLX09.NYM

..Crude Oil Nov 09

..78.53

.. 0.95 ......(1.2%)

GCV09.CMX

..Gold Oct 09

..1,050.70

.. 0.90 ......(0.1%)

There was a lot of talk about the earnings today, especially for Bank of America (BAC) & GE (GE). The reports were not received well. GE is a cross section of many industries & the general tone was viewed as negative. BAC was the only one of the "Big 3" banks not to report a profit in Q3 & it reinforced in traders the problems related to bank loan portfolios. Today's sell off was hardly meaningful, as the averages are still just inches from the highs set yesterday. NAZ is added because of their strong performance in 2009.

Dow Jones Industrials --- YTD




Nasdaq --- YTD