每日市场点评 --- July 9, 2008

Yesterday’s rally turned out to be a one-day event. All three major indices not only gave back all the gains from the previous session, but added a few more. The result is that by the close of today’s trading, all three indices are in the bear market territory, which is defined as a drop of more than 20% from the previous highs. The S&P 500 was the last among the big three to enter the bear territory. It was a light day in terms of economic news. Crude price should not be blamed for today’s sharp sell off as it moved little after plunging more than 5% in the past two days. But deepening concerns over the financial sector outweighed any positive developments in the commodity market.

Utilities were the only major sector that finished the session in green. Typical defensive sectors such as healthcare and consumer staple were faring relatively well compared with the broad market. On the losers’ list, we had names like financials and technologies. It was quite a rare event that the financial sector gained more than 5% on one day then gave pretty much all that gain back the next day. The CRB commodity index recovered modestly from the previous two days’ sell off. The US dollar was lower against most major currencies. Treasuries rallied as typical flight to quality. The VIX index jumped more than 2 points but remained below where it was closed two days ago. The market breath was decisively negative.