Be Patient

Editor’s note: Walt Gault is the guest author this week. David Brown will be back next week.

Today, stocks traded lower for their third straight session. The markets were down on news that China had cut its 2012 growth forecast to an eight-year low of 7.5%. Factory orders came in better-than-expected, albeit -1%, versus the expected -1.6%. Read more about What the Market Wants: Be Patient

Read more about WHAT THE MARKET WANTS: Market Lacks Short-term Memory

There’s a whole lot of flip-flopping going on in the market right now.  Today it went nowhere on no news at all, but if you’d told me the economic indicators for last week were going to report bad-to-not-so-bad numbers and corporate earnings would be split between disappointing and just okay, I would have said that the market would tank. Read more about WHAT THE MARKET WANTS: Market Flip-flops on Mixed News