The Trend Is Not Your Friend

The best thing you could probably say about this week is that at least it is over.

For the week, the Dow fell -3%, the S&P 500 -2.8, the Nasdaq Composite -2.6, and the Russell 2000 -3.8%. Year-to-date, the Dow is now down -10.3%, the S&P 500 -11.9%, the Nasdaq Composite -16.6%, and the Russell 2000 -13.8%.

As you can see, we're in a nasty downtrend and while we continue to trade up and down within the trend, the losses are growing by the day. The main takeaway from this week is that we lost our technical support at the January lows as every market index closed at new multi-year lows. The only remaining hope now is that we'll get oversold enough for a counter-trend relief rally.

Other than whatever the next shoe to drop will be in the financials (and the Fed's subsequent response), we have a relatively light week ahead in terms of economic data. The most significant reports come at the end of the week with retail sales on Thursday and the CPI and Consumer Sentiment reports on Friday. It will also be my last week of trading for March before we head out to Maui. As it stands now, we'll probably get that oversold countertrend rally, but I'll be on vacation when it starts! ;)