Technical Outlook: Refiners May Be Bottoming

For the past few weeks, I have been cautioning investors that the market had a high probability of resuming its primary downtrend.

Indeed, the major indices were battered Thursday on heavy volume -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 dropped about 3% and the Nasdaq Composite, which had been one of the better performing indices, slid 3.2%.

The main problem is the continued concern by institutional investors of another wave of problems in the financial sector and the lack of a catalyst to drive the market higher. In other words, large buyers aren't willing to commit for any length of time. However, all bear markets eventually come to an end, and that will be the case for this one. ...