Market Shakes Off Weak Housing Numbers, Retail

Today was an interesting day. When I left for a meeting this morning, the market was weakening, and it looked like the bears were finally going to enjoy a good day, with the markets closing lower.

But I was shocked that when I got back a few hours later, the Nasdaq had shaken off all of the mornings early weakness. One of the things I noticed was that oil had reversed lower, and moved from above $66 to below $64. This probably helped improve sentiment.

Also, the semi index was on fire, gaining +3.1% on the day. This led all groups by a wide margin. Brokers pulled back the most, falling -1.4% on the day. While the S&P 500 Index was flat for the day, big-cap tech pulled the Nasdaq 100 Index up +0.47% for the day, a nice outperformance for this growth index.

I have to go jump on some earnings conference calls, but today had to be another incredibly frustrating day for the bears.