CNBC Guest Blog
- Busch: Markets Smell a Country Rat
- Schork Oil Outlook: Mission Impossible For The Bears?
- Losey: Asset Allocation At Retirement
- Farrell: Obama Hectored, Ignored and Restricted?
- Don't Dwell on Investment Mistakes; Move on, Like Buffett
- Hirschhorn: Greed...or Fear
- Schork Oil Outlook: Some New Hope For Nat Gas Bulls
- Insights for Growing the Economy: the State of Entrepreneurship
- Tamminen: California Is At It Again
- Dorn: Trading Secrets and Serendipity
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Gold Will Collapse Like Oil Did in 2008: Charts
- China Eastern to Complete Shanghai Air Buy by End '09
- Why Amazon Rules Retail
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- Weak Dollar Is Golden for Mining Companies
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- 5 Stocks That Benefit from Health Care Legislation: Analysts
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- HP's Mark Hurd
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- 9 Stocks That Play Rising Water Costs: Strategists
- Weis' Deal Likely Won't Change Big Money Contracts
- Gold Prices Can Double in 3 Years: Portfolio Manager
- Nov. 23: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Help Wanted—Please Run $4 Billion University
- US Home Prices Up 5th Month, 2nd Straight Quarter
- Revised GDP Reading Puts Growth at 2.8%; Inflation Tame
- US Economy Mired in 'Form of Depression': Rosenberg
- Strong Banks, Weak Credit: Treasury Rethinks TARP
- Weak Dollar Is Golden for Mining Companies
- How Many US Consumers Will Shop this Weekend?
- GE Capital Losses May See Dramatic Fall: JP Morgan
- Galleon's Rajaratnam Denies Inside Trading Charges
- Holiday Guide to This Season's Smartphones
RSS FEED
Text Size 
The level of hesitancy in the market is so palpable you can almost taste it.
Volume has dried up from even the last few months tepid pace. It seems that investors are waiting for someone else to jump in and make the first move. Volume has averaged 1.5 billion shares a day on the NYSE for the past 50 sessions or so, and we are now well below that for the most recent day's trading. When volume turns down and the market churns around a level it usually means a breakout is coming one way or the other. Our feeling is that the next move will be down. Very strong rallies like we have seen since the March lows are usually corrected by 1/3 to 1/2 of the advance and that would be a positive move for the longer term health of the market.
Recent economic data point to a continued slow turn in the economy. The news hasn't turned positive yet but the pace of the decline has decidedly slowed. Jobless claims have leveled, last week's Philadelphia Index was still negative but barely so, and inflation seems well contained. Interest rates have backed up and commodity prices have calmed down which indicates the market has less fear about near-term inflation. With unemployment high and still rising, capacity utilization at record lows, the savings rate rising rapidly (now at 5.7% and our guess is that it goes toward 9%), and Treasury financing needs at staggering levels we find it hard to see a catalyst for higher stock prices in the near term. But we emphasize that is a very short-term outlook.
Numerous stocks are attractively valued and we would not hesitate to stock pick and let the market find its appropriate level. Names we have mentioned in the past two weeks include Comerica, BB&T Bank and JoAnn Stores. We continue to like the large cap tech group, and there are now 28 companies in the S&P 100 that have raised their dividend in the last six months.
- Faber Report: Is It Too Quiet Out There
_______________________________________
Vincent Farrell, Jr. is chief investment officer at Soleil Securities Group and a regular contributor to CNBC. 
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes