A Disappointing Session, But Not All Bad

The market was lower today on comments from Bernanke as well as disappointing economic data. But growth stocks held up reasonably well, and GOOG and AAPL were actually able to buck the weakness and go up for once.

4Q GDP was left unrevised at 0.6% this morning. Many were hoping for some positive revisions that showed growth a bit stronger than first forecast, but there were no revisions.

Bernanke spoke for a second day in front of Congress, and said that he though there might be some banks that fail, but no major ones. That doesn't exactly instill confidence in the market. Maybe he should have said if they lower rates quickly enough, and provide ample liquidity, that he hopes to avoid that scenario?

The inflation trades still worked today also: energy, agric, commodities, etc. But retails and financials got whacked.

Let's also not forget that the market has been up for 4 straight days, so a pullback is not surprising. The SPX fell -0.9%, so it could have been worse. Also, the Nasdaq 100 only gave back -0.30%, which was nice to see. And volume looks like it was lower on the Nazz today than yesterday, so there was less conviction in the selling than past declines.

I am still holding on to my outlook for the market to trade sideways for a little while before mounting another move to the upside that breaks through near-term resistance.

long AAPL, GOOG