Bears Exact Their Revenge

Following Tuesday's suspicious late-day, short-covering rally (yes, now we know for sure, that it was more short-covering than actual buying interest), bears mauled the market in a merciless attack at stocks of all kinds.

Regardless of the cause - be it the price of crude, fires in California, rotten tomatoes or worsening credit conditions worldwide - nobody was very interested in buying stocks, nor will they be for some time. Today's close on the Dow was a 23-month low, the lowest point since August of 2006.

Dow 11,147.44 -236.77; NASDAQ 2,234.89 -59.55; S&P 500 1,244.68 -29.02; NYSE Composite 8,371.63 -144.16

With second quarter earnings due out over the next three weeks, July promises to be as ugly, or even moreso, than June, a month in which the blue chip index lost nearly 1300 points. Thus far - over the span of just 6 trading days, the Dow has given back more than 200 points. The other major indices fared equally as poorly, though, somewhat amazingly, the NASDAQ still has not fallen below its March 10 closing low, of 2169.

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The S&P 500, however, today closed well below the March 10 close of 1273. The NYSE Composite is well beyond the March 10 close of 8534. These are historic bear market finishes and it's obviously far from over.

Declining issues roared past advancers, 4266-2035, while the gap between new lows and new highs was somewhat muted, with 440 new lows to just 60 new highs. Volume was moderate, though most of it (over 80%) was to the downside.

Oil finished higher by a mere one penny, at $136.05 on the NYMERC. Gold gained $5.30 to $928.60, while silver added 22 cents to $18.18.

NYSE Volume 1,488,884,000
NASDAQ Volume 2,259,971,000