It's Official; It's a Bear Market

The technical definition of a bear market is a 20% drop from the high, generally over the course of a few months.  The Dow (DJIA) hit a high of 14,198 last year and ended this past week at 11,346.  This means the index has declined by 20.1%, as illustrated in the chart below, right.  The S&P 500 Index seems to be headed for the same territory.  The high last year was 1,576; the index currently sits at 1,284, a decrease of almost 19%.  So, where do we go from here?  All the indicators seem to point further downward.  However, despite the gloom and doom, there are some stocks that are still climbing higher, and the key, of course, is to find these.  So where exactly are these companies?  Here are some stocks from my watch list that   closed higher on Friday, even though the market closed down 107 points. 

The following shares closed higher on Friday and one, ARLP, even defied the 358 point drop on Thursday:

OPY, CB, XOM, ARLP, PCAR, CAE, PH, CHL, OXY, ITU, PEG, GEF

Comments

[John, Fitness Austin]

With all the news about being on the cusp of a bear market the market is facing a strong headwind. Inverse EFTs have worked well for me last week. People are talking about a bounce; I don't know.