Market Update

Just a few notes from Monday's trading that might be of relevance. We continue to see broad market weakness. For instance, there were 5 issues in the S&P 600 small caps making new 52-week highs on Monday and 33 making new lows. That is the highest number of new lows since the recent weakness began. In the broad market, 315 issues made 20-day new highs; 1732 made new lows, indicating that last week's late bounce has not kept many issues off their lows. I notice that about 23% of S&P 500 stocks are above their 50-day moving averages. Typically, in the past several years, we've had to get below 20% to reach an intermediate-term market bottom. In all, plenty of reason to stay defensive.