How Did The Stock Market Do Today?

The first question I always want the answer to when I open the paper is "How did the stock market do today?" The first step is to look at each index and see if it rose or fell. All four indexes rose again on Friday. The S&P, NYSE, NASDAQ and the Dow closed higher but volume was weaker than the day before. From my point of view this represents some stalling action but it did not count as a distribution day.

Remember, that once the market confirms and uptrend, the focus each day with regard to general market direction is on looking for distribution days. Distribution days are days when an index closes higher on higher volume. None of the indexes did that today. It remains to be seen whether this market has turned so we'll have to keep an eye on it. We can do that by watching each indexes action, both price and volume on a daily basis as well as watching the IBD TV Market Wrap and reading the Big Picture column.

Get in the habit of doing these three steps on a daily basis and don't rely on the news or the media in general to tell you what the market did today. Let the market do it.