The market is digesting last week drop, the main factors for last week market performance were:
· First the news from overseas continues to pour in. We still have conflict in Gaza, Syria, Russia, and Iraq. Last week Argentina defaulted on bad debt because it will not pay off a couple of hedge funds that own some of their junk bonds. On top of that the United States is pushing out mixed economic reports.
· We have reached a tricky spot when it comes to employment numbers and economic indicators. On the one hand the economy is improving but now that will spur inflation which the Fed does not want to handle until 2015, as planned.
· Traders are worried that they may step in and raise interest rates ahead of schedule to curb inflation.
The markets continued to sell off on Friday but with little conviction. Some follow through was expected on Friday after such a large down day on Thursday. It will be interesting to see if the market bounces back from here. We should at least expect a relief bounce and put the S&P 500 back into the 50 day moving average at 1953.