Joshua Hayes'  Instablog

Negative news from economic releases did not help out stocks today. Case-Shiller home price index dropped more than expected dampening hopes on a housing recovery. Worse yet, consumer confidence dropped to levels unseen since March 2009. In addition, the Richmond Fed Manufacturing index dropped unexpectedly totalling up to a disappointing start to the day. News out of Europe continued with a headline reading the EU Finance ministers weren’t to vote on the EFSF tomorrow. However, they are going to continue with the summit! Stocks were able to find their footing after the European headlines and economic news, but the support quickly faded. There was no buying spree into the close, perhaps a shift in market behavior. All told, a negative price action day with the NYSE indexes notching a day of mild distribution and the NASDAQ escaping for now.

Europe simply cannot get its act together. They have a terrible issue at hand and a huge void of leadership making matters worse. The yo-yo type media reports are quite interesting and disturbing at the same time. Regardless of the decisions being made we’ll ultimately follow the market where price and volume give us signals. The hoopla is quite entertaining.

Tomorrow we’ll get a read on the II sentiment and if the recent move in stocks has alleviated the rather bearish tone the survey has portrayed. Many have used it as a thesis to how it was time to buy the market. It has certainly worked since early October. However, with the lack of accumulation in the market it hardly appears it signal “the bottom.” Time will tell, but we haven’t seen the usual signs of a market bottom just yet.

In after-hours trading AMZN followed along the same lines as AAPL and NFLX with how the stock traded with the company’s earning release. AMZN stock slide 18% at the lows of the after-hours session causing a bit of panic in the early going. The stock was able to settle around down 12 percent. This was on top of the ugly action the stock displayed during market hours. The stock clearly is under pressure and with another leading stock down it is not looking good for the market overall. Not only do we have stocks like OPEN, AAPL, NFLX, AMZN, stocks like HANS, CPHD getting hit as well. Cash is certainly still king here as this market waivers heading into the end of the month.

Look for more nonsense to come out of Europe tomorrow. If nothing else, it is entertaining.

Stay on top of things!