Last night, the markets saw a good deal of motion. At one point, for example, the S&P futures were up 1.5%, though by the time our market got around to opening, the gain had been cut to about one-third of that. Aside from a pretty nasty selloff, followed by a bit of a ramp job, the market basically spent the first couple hours flopping and chopping in a wide range, with the indices modestly red. It's worth noting that in the early going, housing stocks were down just slightly on the back of this morning's disappointing number for housing starts.
In-the-Running Bulls: The wide-ranging flop-and-chop continued all day long, though there was a pretty decent surge at the end of the day, which took the market out at its best level of the day. A check of the box scores shows that, of all things, the SOX was the leader, but the biotechs were pretty frisky as well. Before the open this morning, I thought there might be a chance for the market to come in after the big moves we have had, and the fact that the war news is now on the table, but that did not occur. Perhaps there are a lot of buyers lurking around. In any case, if one thought the near-term direction of the market was going to continue to be up, today's performance could be deemed fairly credible.
Away from stocks, most of the action was in the oil market, with nearby crude down more than $3 a barrel. The precious metals were slightly higher, while the 10-year note was down a half-point. It's interesting to note that the war trades for all these outside markets have evolved at different paces. First, gold collapsed. Then, coincident with the stock market rally, the dollar started to rally. Oil has been the last piece of the war trade, cracking hard yesterday and today.
William Fleckenstein is the president of Fleckenstein Capital, which manages a hedge fund based in Seattle. Outside contributing columnists for TheStreet.com and RealMoney, including Mr. Fleckenstein, may, from time to time, write about securities in which they have a position. In such cases, appropriate disclosure is made. At time of publication, Fleckenstein Capital had no position in stocks mentioned, although positions can change at any time. Under no circumstances does the information in this column represent a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security. The views and opinions expressed in Mr. Fleckenstein's columns are his own and not necessarily those of TheStreet.com. While Mr. Fleckenstein cannot provide personalized investment advice or recommendations, he invites you to send comments on his column to bfleckenstein@thestreet.com.
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