Meisler: This Market's Gone Nowhere

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The sentiment is the oddest part of this whole market. We've seen folks get giddy one day and downright depressed the very next day. Just look at last week -- the market did an up, down, up, down move. Each time we were down, folks loaded up on puts, and each time we were up they loaded up on calls.

Sentiment on Monday morning was so dreary I couldn't believe it. I even asked what it was that had turned everyone so bearish so quickly. But then came the down open -- barely down at that -- and the total and absolute lack of selling. It simply dried up, and it did so right at the neckline of the head-and-shoulders top as well as the 200-day moving average line.

I figure that bounce must be what turned folks away from that strong negativity at the open because by midday the Index put/call ratio had sunk below 100%. It ended the day over 100%, but not by much.

I did notice something else. As longtime readers know, I turned bearish and began looking for a market correction in late April. I was clearly wrong. But when we looked back at that action last week, we saw that the market had gone nowhere since early May. I don't know where all these folks have been but I must have heard, seen or read a dozen times Monday how the market had gone nowhere for eight to 10 weeks.

What surprised me is that such commentary came from the bulls. Did these folks really think we had actually gone somewhere in the market since early May? Isn't that why the 50-day moving average line has become important now as discussed Monday?

Thus far, no one seems to be commenting too loudly on the 50-day moving average line and the potential for a rollover there. So, was that the market correction, that sideways, go-nowhere market? I don't know. Not yet at least.