By Dave and Donald Moenning
What a difference a week can make in this game, eh? What’s interesting here is that things are traditionally kinda quiet at this time of year. However, while I spent last week running from meeting to meeting, the stock market appears to have embarked on a course correction that just might turn out to be meaningful.
At this stage of the game, I am not completely sure which is the more important focal point in the market. However, it is clear that traders were able to find a handful of reasons to do some hand-wringing last week.
First, there was the resumption of the decline in oil. As we’ve discussed a time or two lately, oil is viewed by traders (and their computers) as a proxy for global growth. And from a big picture standpoint, the fact that China’s economy is slowing faster than expected and the economies of both the Eurozone and Japan continue to struggle, a decline in oil is to be expected.