I thought that after Friday's bounce off support, we might see a rally, but stocks sagged into the close, ending down again. It's difficult to be optimistic in this environment. Very thin volume.
from WSJ:
NEW YORK—U.S. stocks finished in the red for a third straight day as continuing economic fears weighed on the market, overshadowing excitement over a string of acquisitions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 39.21 points, or 0.38%, at 10174.41 after a session that saw the measure gain as many as 91 points. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 0.92% to 2159.63 while the Standard &Poor's 500-stock index fell 0.40% to 1067.36...
"We've kind of hit a brick wall here and everything's going sideways," said Daniel Morgan, portfolio manager at Synovus Securities. "Everybody's concerned about deflation."
Investors had little U.S. economic data to go on Monday, though the rest of the week includes key reports on the housing market as well as a revision to second-quarter economic growth. Economists are expecting the government's estimate of 2.4% economic growth for the second quarter to be cut to 1.3% when it is released Friday, which would represent a clear slowdown from earlier in the year.
The latest economic data from the euro zone was less than encouraging. Both the region's manufacturing and services purchasing managers indexes slid in August, despite pickups in Germany and France, suggesting that other countries that are implementing strict fiscal plans to narrow large budget deficits have seen a sharper slowdown in their economies...
Meanwhile, a report from Moody's Investors Service warned that growth throughout the euro zone may fall short of preventing credit-rating agencies from downgrading some member countries if their economies begin to suffer in the face of tight austerity budgets.
The euro fell to $1.2662 while the U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against a basket of six others, edged up 0.1%. Treasurys rose, pushing the yield on the 10-year note down to 2.61%, while crude-oil futures tumbled to around $73 a barrel and gold futures were off slightly.
Monday's stock-market movements came on one of the thinnest days for trading volume this year, with just over 3.3 billion shares changing hands in NYSE Composite volume. The only two weaker trading days have come on the two previous Mondays.
