STOCKS GO UP, DOWN, UP, DOWN

Things seem to have stalled here lately in the stock market and we are seeing it go up one day and then right back down the next. You can see what I mean by looking at the 1 month chart of the Dow below:

There are many reasons for this up and down movement but what it probably signals the most is that investors are getting a little nervous. The market has moved up very steadily for about a year now all the way from it's low last year of just under 7,000 to over 11,200 a day or two ago. When the stock market continually goes up and back down for a period of time like it has it can mean that the steam has run out of the rally and investors are really torn at what to do. When people are selling one day, buying the next, and then selling the day after, it can mean there is a lot of confused people out there and a lot of differing opinions.

You can read Jim Jubak's opinion of the matter where he likens it from the mood changing from a half full glass outlook to a glass half empty outlook. Stocks just don't keep going up forever and there is always something around the corner that can stall momentum. The financial shenanigans in Greece seem to have helped make investors very nervous in a market that was already very high.

Why do stocks go up one day and down the next? Well, as I have written about before, the market moves on people's perceptions of what is happening and what they think will happen. It is all about whether people see positive or negative things in the future and right now it looks like there is possibly more negative than positive out there.

The Obama administration has this country in more debt than most people realize and that could become very troublesome down the line. If foreign investors start pulling out of America and don't buy up our ever increasing debt, where will that leave us? No stock market can withstand something like that.

This Stock Market For Dummies blog wonders whether it might be time to start selling a stock or two just in case? Maybe it is time to move some money out of stocks and put it into something safer for a while? The problem is that once you sell and get out it is very difficult to figure out when to buy back in again. However, maybe some safety is a good direction to go right now?

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