'Fast Money' Recap: It's in the Charts

The first trading day of December offered little in market action. On Monday the Dow finished down 57 points and the Nasdaq fell 23 points. The team at CNBC's 'Fast Money" looked to the charts for answers as well as getting Dennis Gartman's opinion.

Chartology with Barry Ritholtz

Barry Ritholtz, Director of Research at Fusion IQ Research, joined the "Fast Money" crew to discuss what a technical analysis of the market tells him. According to Ritholtz, the trend is your friend on the 5-year chart of the S&P 500. Until it breaks the trend line, he would stay long. Ritholtz likes the charts on State Street(STT Quote) and Stanley(SXE Quote). Guy Adami agrees with Ritholtz on State Street.

(Read more by Barry Ritholtz at Real Money.com Five Stocks for Playing a Recession Safely.)

Gartman's View

Dennis Gartman, author of The Gartman Letter, was a guest on the show and shared his take on the markets. Gartman was very impressed on Monday that gold went up even as the dollar got a bit stronger. He suggests that investors buy things that are going up when the news is bearish. An example of that right now would be gold.

Gartman is also worried about American oil firms getting hit with new taxes after the 2008 elections. He disclosed that he is short ConocoPhillips(COP Quote) and Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote) and long Petrobras(PZE Quote).

Gartman is long grain and grain companies like Monsanto(MON Quote) and Potash(POT Quote). On the other hand, he is very short retail stocks like Coach(COH Quote), Tiffany(TIF Quote) and Harley Davidson(HOG Quote).