Lots of Nothing

While equity markets were buoyed by this morning's BLS jobs report (private sector employment rose more than 60,000 in August), today was yet another case of a big price move coupled with little conviction.  For the session, the S&P 500 managed a volume reading of only 3.0 billion shares.  As expected, this lack of volume was seen across nearly all markets today as investors largely took a break from their trading screens and began the three-day weekend early.  Like I mentioned last night, today's trading ranges are fairly worthless as indicators of things to come due to this lack of participation, so, once again, there's not a lot to say tonight.  Volumes should begin picking up next week, so I'm looking forward to getting closer to some sort of catalyst that can break these markets from their ranges.  It's hard to know exactly what this catalyst will end up being, but I think we can be confident in the fact that one is coming.  The markets have simply been too stagnant of late and in dire need of a trend.

Hopefully the coming weeks will be a little more interesting than the month of August.  There are lots of potential pitfalls looming for the markets, but, as always, there are rays of hope sprinkled in the mix as well.  That's what makes this business so tough.  With that said, I do think that continuing to position one's portfolio in a defensive manner will end up being a winning decision.  Especially when you consider the limited threat of inflation over the near term, the opportunity cost associated with a defensive portfolio is severely limited.  That's why my own personal portfolio is allocated in just such a manner.  Until Tuesday.....