Naive Trader

The market took a step back at the end of a week, after moving sideways most of the week. It wasn’t a huge move downward, but was certainly a bearish looking day across indexes and market indicators.

Investors shook off bad employment news in the morning to drive indexes to all-time highs before an afternoon session of selling. There were plenty of gains across a breadth of stocks, but the losses in the mega-caps weighed down the major indexes. The exception was the small-cap Russell 2000 which gained +2.05% in a solidly upwards session.

It was not a very exciting session for the Nasdaq today, but there were certainly pockets of excitement in parts of the market. The brief climb in the morning for Nasdaq turned to a sideways movement for the rest of the day. The good news is that the index never went back down towards the morning low. However, the gains for mega-caps and some growth stocks were not broadly shared across the market, keeping the index from closing closer to the intraday highs.

If you are invested in growth stocks and small caps you are probably delighted, but it may be a bit confusing to look at the indexes. The growth and small cap segments did exceptionally well, but the major indexes show an indecisive day. The Nasdaq dipped mid-day but finished just above its open.

It was tough to have any expectation coming into today’s trading session. Nervousness about what will happen in DC on top of continuing pandemic pressures over the weekend resulted in a low start to the day. Confidence grew as buyers came in but ultimately the bears ruled the day, bringing the index back down to a new intraday low before close.