ETF Wrap-Up: A Light Volume Day

This is no way to start the holiday week is it? The only folks pleased by today’s (Monday) action are those driving a Hummer and/or snowmobiling. This type of action is why Chicken Dave still maintains high cash balances at the ETF Digest.

Bulls will cheer the light volume today as no big thing but you should expect this type of action in either direction until trading resumes after the New Year.

I suspect tomorrow may offer more interesting action since at least there will be news from retail sales, consumer sentiment, and final GDP data.

Below is Yahoo/Finance’s numbers and then our man in Geneva puts everything straight for us.

It was a light volume day and with it indexes can get pushed around relatively easily. You can see that clearly with the action today in the 5 minute SPY (SPY) chart above. You should expect more such two-way action throughout the next two shortened weeks.

ProShares and Rydex issued their holiday tax gifts today proving only one thing: there’s no free lunch. If you’re a tax-exempt investor protecting your portfolios with inverse or leveraged inverse issues you were unaffected. But, taxable investors got the tax bill today. But, as you may know, if you tried to protect yourself in futures or options you would’ve received a similar bill. If you had sold your stocks, you would have another tax bill to pay if you had a low cost basis and sold them well. It’s a bitter pill to some since these tax liabilities are mostly short-term gains. But you know something? It’s a lot better having a tax bill than losing 40-50% on your investments plus there are few ways to beat Uncle Sam without some high-priced tax accountants and lawyers.

I’ll post again tomorrow (Tuesday) and that should be it for this week…er, maybe.

Let’s see what happens.

Have a pleasant day.

Disclaimer: The ETF Digest is long among other issues: FXF, GLD, EWJ, EWY and FXI.

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