More Confusion...

7am EST I am on the mailing lists of several "pundits" who give their daily opinions of the markets' direction and other issues they see. It gives me a good cross section of the overall opinions in the market. At the end of the day, opinions are the only thing that matter to a trader. Markets are simply a study in group psychology and behavioral finance. When you get a cross section of what the "big" names are thinking, you can get a little feel of what the market is going to do. For a trader looking for an edge, this can help.

The feeling I got on Thursday and Friday was "I have no clue", from these emails. They intelligently hedged all their statements, and tried to sound like they had some insight. They didn't.

For a trader, there is a lesson to be learned from this. There are times where the market isn't trending in one particular direction. It gets very choppy and looks around for direction. Like people, markets look for leadership. Right now, there is very little true leadership in the market. When there is uncertainty like this, the markets tend to sell off. Traders do not like uncertainty. When there is the perception of uncertainty, the conviction buying required to send the market sustainably higher isn't there.

On that note, it looks like we will see a market that heads higher initially this morning. There have been several financial stock upgrades this morning and they tend to lead the market. Of course anything can happen (I'm hedging here) but we should see some initial strength. I am still very light in positions right now and I don't plan to add anything new today. Hang tight for now and until nest time, stay low risk..