Uncertainty Weighs Down On The Market - Markets This Morning

Stocks fell most of the day, snapping back only in the last half-hour.

Worries about Glencore, Volkswagen, commodities and China remain in place.

The bear needs to be fed more bad news if it’s going to keep feeding on investors.

uncertainty weighs down on the market

Walk in the woods almost anywhere in America and before long you are going to start talking about bears. And the old joke. If a bear comes after you, you don’t have to out-run the bear. Just the others with you.

Yesterday was like that. The stock market kept waiting for Mr. Bear to show up. When he did, around 2 PM, he had his way, until a cavalry of buyers showed up at 3:30 and saved most of the averages. For the day the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDEX:DJI) rose .30%, or 47.24, to finish at 16,049. The S&P 500 (INDEX:SPX) eked out a gain of .12%, or 2.32, to finish at 1,884. The Nasdaq Composite (INDEX:COMP) was not so lucky, losing 26.69 or .59% on the day to finish at 4,517.

BioTech Eaten by Bear

It was the biotech sector that got eaten by the bear. They went up furthest and fastest, so they are coming down fastest and hardest. Valeant Pharmaceuticals (NYSE:VRX) was down another 4.96%, or $8.25, to $158.08. This is a stock that was trading over $200/share as recently as Friday. The iShares NASDAQ Biotech Index (NASDAQ:IBB) finished down again, but only by .39%.

There was no news to account for this. Supposedly Hillary Clinton was supposed to apologize for mentioning the sector, although if a politician’s tweet can send your stock down maybe it was overpriced in the first place. Valeant’s market cap has now gone down 21% this week, on average that is five times normal. There was similar carnage at smaller companies like Avalance Biotech (NASDAQ:AAVL), down 7.47% or 64 cents to $8.04, Spark Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:ONCE), down 8.38% or 3.63 to $38.91, and uniQure (NASDAQ:QURE), down 13.52% or $2.52 to $18.99.