U.S. Stock Market - Late Downside Reversal

Today was a very interesting day in the U.S. stock market. Most major indices traded near unchanged in morning dealings, but solid across-the-board gains were then made in early afternoon trade. At one point the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged +74 points to 14,149, which was only 16 points away from the all-time record closing high of 14,165 set in October 2007. I didn’t see any negative news at today’s intra-day peak (which was posted at around 2:30 PM ET) to account for the reversal, but it’s not hard to imagine that some investors may have been concerned about the ramifications of so-called sequester spending cuts that are scheduled to kick in tomorrow at the Federal budget level. Negotiations between the Obama Administration and Congress to dampen any potential negative ramifications of those cuts were a complete failure today. In the U.S. stock market, selling pressure was steady between 2:30 PM ET and the final NY close at 4:00 PM ET, with a sizeable sell program executed in the last 5 minutes of trading (just to add insult to injury). Among the major averages, only the Russell 2000 Index and the Dow Jones Transportation Average finished today in positive territory (and just barely positive for both).

Here are today’s closing marks, with changes from Wednesday’s close:

Thursday’s Changes                

Dow Jones Industrial Average                      14,054.49         - 20.88             - 0.15%          

S&P 500 Index                                                1,514.68          -   1.31             - 0.09%

NASDAQ Composite Index                             3,160.19          -   2.07             - 0.07%          

Russell 2000 Index                                           911.11           +  1.19             +0.13%                       

For your review, today’s intra-day 1-minute bar chart for the Dow Jones Industrial Average is attached here. This closely-watched market barometer peaked at 2:30 PM ET, about the same time as the intra-day peak in all major stock market averages today.

Bottom Line: At 2:30 PM ET today, with the DJIA only 16 points from its all-time high, I would have bet that a new record would be posted today in this venerable index. I remember thinking at the time that “end-of-month” last-hour dealings would probably have a positive bias as potential “window dressing” from portfolio managers might favor the buy side. Obviously, this was not the case, as sellers dominated the action in the last 90 minutes of NYSE dealings. Maybe the bulls can regroup and make another run at record highs tomorrow, but I firmly believe that tomorrow will be their last chance on this advance (which began on November 16, 2012). Unless a convincing new high is made tomorrow in the DJIA, I strongly suspect that the broader market will be in full retreat by this Monday’s close. Gold/Silver stocks were weak again today, but their time to shine will come very soon (and the gains will be well worth the pain suffered over the last two days). If most of the sequester cuts are executed, which is currently a likely scenario, then the Federal Reserve will have to compensate for this fiscal drag on the economy. Gold/silver stocks will be the obvious beneficiaries of this additional monetary accommodation.

Dow Jones Industrial Average - Today's One Minute Bar Chart