Still Home on the Range

The range in this case is a stock market bound at the top by the December highs and at the bottom by about a five percent decline.  Five percent seems to be the catalyst for bargain hunters to show up and the recent highs cause traders to take profits.  In the meantime, time is being marked off.  How long will this range bound market persist?  No one really knows, but it is a form of correction, just one of time rather than points.

Within our firm we debate how the resolution will occur.  Will it be some catalyst that brings confidence and prompts buyers to pay-up for rapidly moving stocks?  Or will the market finally succumb to a collection of fears and sell-off to a point that brings in new investors?  We constantly review business fundamentals and they continue to be good.  So our instincts tell us that confidence is building and a stampede to the upside is the most likely resolution.