12 More Days

The "we're fine until 09" sentiment remains intact ahead of next week's Fed meeting and options expiration. While it looked ugly this morning, the market resisted the urge to sell and we closed up higher on the day.

For the week, the S&P 500 dropped -0.35%, Dow -0.25% while weekly gains could be found in both the Nasdaq +2.40%, and the Russell 2000 +1.4%. Given the plethora of bad news and focus on bailouts, it could have far been worse. The biggest winners this week were gold (GDX), steel (SLX), coal (KOL), energy (RYE), and basic materials (UYM) as the reflation trade took hold. No doubt, a lot of people were also encouraged to see the rally in semiconductors as well.

In some ways, it is difficult to believe we have just 12 more trading days left of 2008 and in other ways this year has been a truly long one. No matter your perspective, I'll be back next week (although with fewer posts than normal) as I work on wrapping up the year (i.e. prepare taxes (ugh), get the new workstation up and running, and work on several projects for the website that I haven't made time for until now). See you next week!