Dow Watch: Lack of Confidence

(At 2:40 p.m. EDT)

A little over an hour remains in the second quarter of 2009, and like a defeated boxer, the Dow looks like its down for the count.

The sucker punch was the weaker-than-expected consumer confidence number I referenced earlier, and the blue chip stocks haven't been able to recover. Of course, not much has happened since the report's release, leaving the Dow lower by 100 points for the day.

I wish there was something more clever to say or some other headlines to report on, but it's a fairly quiet day in a holiday-shortened week. Volume is petering out as we head toward the July 4th holiday. CNBC anchors have now been talking about municipal bonds for what feels like hours.

Perhaps the action will pick up as the week draws to a close, even if the volume doesn't. I nearly forgot that the Labor Department will post its nonfarm payrolls report for June on Thursday because of the holiday. With volume expected to be extremely light headed into the long weekend, it'll be interesting to see how volatile the market will be trading off that number.

Economists expect that about 375,000 jobs were lost this month, and the unemployment rate likely swelled from the 9.4% reported in May. I'm always interested in revisions to prior months, and I'll certainly be watching to see if May's loss of 345,000 is revised up or down.

For now, there's an awful lot of red on the Dow. Only McDonald's (MCD Quote) is trading higher. The laggards were led by a 4.8% drop in Caterpillar (CAT Quote) shares.