Top Takes From RealMoney

The RealMoney contributors are in the business of trading and investing all day on the basis of ongoing news flow. Below, we offer the top five ideas that RealMoney contributors posted today and how they played those ideas.

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1. Will It Stay Down?
By Tim Melvin
9:27 a.m. EDT

It is going to be very interesting to see if the market bulls can push the market up off this weak open. All the momentum in recent weeks has been to the upside. Virtually every selloff has been met with late-day buying that seems to almost inevitably take prices back into the black.

I have said repeatedly that I did not think the market was correctly pricing the state of the economy. When the momentum shifts, it could happen quickly and sharply. I will be watching closely today to see if the fading perception of China leading the world out of recession finally brings out enough sellers to change the tide.

No positions.

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2. Corporate Bonds Weaker
By Tom Graff
9:48 a.m. EDT

Not surprisingly, corporate bonds are significantly weaker today vs. Treasury bonds. This is one of those days when buyers and sellers are feeling each other out. In an over-the-counter market (which corporate bonds are) there isn't any way to just see "how is it trading." Most names don't trade more than one or two times a day, sometimes not at all.

So today the stock market opens up very weak, and accounts are not aggressively buying or selling. What do the dealer desks do? They just quote everything 10 basis points wider and see what happens.

As I said, the early color is that we don't have many actual sellers. One trader I talked to still thinks there is substantial demand at wider levels. We'll see if that demand shows up.

For now, the iShares Investment-Grade Bond Fund (LQD Quote) is underperforming Treasuries by 1%, consistent with about 12 basis points of widening.

No positions.