Market Treads Water in Front of Economic Reports

On Thursday, the market basically opened down and slipped a little lower in the morning session. It gained its footing, but was unable to climb above the morning highs, and the market essentially went sideways for the day. This type of day doesn't yield much information or profit. The day's results were mixed.

The Nasdaq gained +3 points and the S&P lost -2 points, so basically ending flat. Advancing issues beat decliners by 1.3 to 1, but down volume beat up volume by 1.3 to 1. New 52 week highs beat out the 52 week lows by a ratio of 8 to 1. The market may be taking a pause today before economic reports coming out tomorrow: December Housing Starts, Industrial Production, and Capacity Utilization, along with January Michigan Sentiment.

While the Nasdaq Composite is the leading index and broke to new highs on Wednesday, the S&P and Dow are lagging behind, below their old highs. The ADX is currently weak for all three indices (daily charts), so we can't expect a big move until the ADX begins to turn up.