History Says Pullback From Stock Market Rally a Solid Bet
By:
Albert Bozzo, Senior Features Editor | 21 Apr 2009 | 09:39 AM ET
There's more where that came from.
That's what some market watchers are saying about the sharp selloff in stocks Tuesday, following a stunning—yet, some say, suspect—run-up of well over 20 percent from the standing bear market low of March 9.
"Whenever you get that kind of move in that short a period when news is still mixed, you're vulnerable to a setback," says money manager Jim Awad, managing director at Zephyr Management. "We've gone from the bear market to the never-never land."
Caution and skepticism has been building in some quarters recently, particularly as the Dow Industrials hugged a 200-point trading range over the 11 sessions going into Monday.
To some, however, the writing was already on the wall late last week, even as the major indices edged to new highs Friday in their spring sprint.
"This thing is due," veteran market watcher and UBS floor operations director Art Cashin told CNBC early Friday. "I'm betting we're going to see that pullback in the rally."
Cashin, among other things, cited the narrow nature of the rally and how many of the stocks attracting interest were "low-priced stocks," often a sign of indiscriminate bottom fishing.
Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard's & Poor, says technical data and historical trends pointed to an April 17 high, followed by the typical retreat and retesting of the bear market low. [more]
http://www.cnbc.com/id/30313674