ETF Wrap-Up: Volatility Remains Quite Lethal To All Investors

It’s probably just some profit-taking and today’s (Tuesday) decline was probably well-indicated by the McClellan Oscillator posted yesterday.

Within the selling there were plenty of strange crosscurrents including:

Warnings galore from chip makers Texas Instruments (TXN), Altera (ALTR), Broadcom (BRCM) and National Semiconductor (NSM) that investors ignored bidding the stocks sharply higher;

Chrysler not willing to show the government their books for bailout monies because they’re a private company [as if]; NUE warns and the stock is also bid higher;

Black Friday store sales reported their first decline in history, down 8.4%;

Sony’s going to layoff 8K workers and closing plants;

Goldman Sachs (GS) has its earning forecast slashed by Deutsche Bank (DB) while former Bear Stearns honcho Ace Greenberg says the company failed because of rumors and not crappy investments [gimme a break!];

The former criminals who ran Freddie (FRE) and Fannie (FNM) testified, sort of, before congress;

Bond bubble bulls got all jiggy again as yields on T-Bills fell to negative as fear still reigns.

What on earth did the Fryguy leave out? Okay, how about the crooked Governor of Illinois? Well, I was raised in Chicago so enough said.

Volume overall was about the same as yesterday. Breadth was negative but only modestly so. I’ve posted Yahoo/Finance data previously but you can see why I don’t like it since it’s hard to imagine up volume on the NYSE being 90%.

Compare it to WSJ data from the same period. What’s with Yahoo anyway?

And, our man in Geneva gives us his take.

Bulls shouldn’t be too discouraged since inside today’s volatility there were positive developments in the action of technology and issues like NUE. Perhaps just reflects high bullish anxiety levels and little more.

For those wishing to better time their trading activities for new positions or fine-tune existing positions, the McClellan Oscillator has done an adequate job. Just remember, it’s a highly short-term view.

The overall news is still quite negative but we’re in that season where bulls can make some noise since they desperately want and need to. We’re neither bulls nor bears but are systematic trend-followers. The time still isn’t right yet for us and today’s action supports the view that volatility remains quite lethal to all investors.

Have a pleasant day.

Disclaimer: The ETF Digest has no positions.

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