Market Commentary from August 1, 2008

Three out of the four trading days this week experienced 200-point daily moves in the Dow.  Some were up, some were down.  Still the recent low has held.

The following picture shows charts of the S&P 500 Index on two timeframes: daily and 5-minute bars.

There are clearly a series of higher lows (on both charts).  Nonetheless, the market has been fragile lately.  A move up from here would be a big confidence booster.

Here are a few of the posts I found interesting this week:

• Hulbert Says The Stars Have Yet to Align to End the Bear Market (NYTimes)
• Big Mac Index: currencies are expensive in Europe, cheap in Asia (The Economist)
• Real Estate is down; so flip a website instead (NYTimes)

And, a little bit extra:

• Nassim Nicholas Taleb auther of Fooled by Randomness & Black Swan profiled (TimesOnline)
• Randy Pausch Gave His Last Lecture (Big Picture)
• Can you use technical analysis on baseball? (Daily Options Report)
• How Are They Doing Now? From "Good to Great" to not-so-hot (NYTimes Freakonomics Blog)