Some stocks are bottoming. Some stocks are finally bending over. The market still looks bad to me, but not as bad as it looked two months ago. How’s that for being decisive? I wish I could provide some clarity on what’s coming, but that isn’t going to happen. Not because I don’t want to, but because I have no clue. And anyone that says they have certainty in either direction is just not believable. I admire their conviction, but it’s more of a wish or a guess than anything else.

At times during the past two weeks, I saw a glimmer of hope that we were gaining some positive traction - at least enough to slow the decline and then, it fails and we slip away once again. Last week, strong stocks got weak and weak stocks got weaker. I saw minimal leadership outside of defensive stocks such as some of the REITS, utilities and interestingly enough, small and midcap regional banks. But for the most part, there were very few stocks that were starting new and decisively strong upward moves and only a few that continued with prior positive trends. The only other good thing for me to say is that the downward moves were not as dramatic as recent weeks. I know that may be confusing given the declines we have seen, but from a technical perspective, it wasn’t as bad as it looks. That being said, I am not yet in the camp that says we are going to get a washout decline (I am still stubbornly holding off on my capitulation post.)

Today was pretty at times and ugly at times and at the end - it was just pretty ugly. The pretty part was the battle for most of the day that occured just north and south of the opening values in all the major indices. It really looked like we were finding some support in the face of uninspiring PPI and retail sales data. Best of all was the volume which was lending credibility to the back and forth action. Then the last hour came and we had the decline, rally and ending dropoff - as I said “pretty ugly.”

One trend that concerns me though is the support that I think is coming from international equities into US equities. It seems that we do ok until the foreign markets close, and then we sell off a bit easier. If I am right on that, then we may not benefit if international markets stabilize. While the CPI data will dominate Wednesday’s action, I am feeling a twinge of numbness to Fed data. I actually believe that investors are starting to get a bit tired of worrying about Bernanke. Maybe it is just my own desires to stop hearing the bs, but I think the decision to avoid monetary policy discussions in his speeches and Q&A sessions was helpful. I am hopeful that a bad CPI number will not bring on huge selling and that a good CPI number will not bring a return of the one and done crowd. Lastly, I am spending a tremendous amount of time watching the index based ETFs. I expect they will be the first vehicles that large investors will use to reenter the markets and when I see them start to stabilize, I will feel better about the possibility of a real rally.