Sam Collins

A Strategy for a Confounding Market

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At the close, the Dow was down 23 points to 8,300, the S&P 500 gained 6 points to 901, and Nasdaq rose 27 points to 1,792. Volume barely topped 1.1 billion shares on the NYSE, but advancers were ahead of decliners by more than 2-to-1. Nasdaq traded 630 million shares, with advancers ahead of decliners by about 3-to-2.

August crude oil fell 57 cents to close at $68.67 in a volatile day of trading that had a high of $69.86. The Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) gained 19 cents at $47.22.

Gold rose $10.10 to $934.40 an ounce -- breaking through its key moving averages and running higher despite strength in the U.S. dollar. The PHLX Gold/Silver Index (XAU) closed at $140.37, up $3.99.

What the Markets Are Saying

I've always liked taking a simple approach to technical analysis, such as, "When the market treats good news badly, watch out -- a sell-off is coming."

But yesterday's results threw a monkey wrench into the works when the good news of the Fed continuing to support the economy was treated badly, the bad news of a continuation of lower new home sales was ignored, and the bad news of Boeing's cancellation of the 787 Dreamliner flight was treated very badly by the Dow.

Meanwhile, the good news of Oracle's forecast was treated well by Nasdaq and ignored by others. My mind is spinning.

And nothing is simple with the charts, either.