Wild Selling Leads To Stock Market Losses

Heading into the Monday stock market session, the market found itself trading negative before the opening bell sounded.

The weekend was already a distant memory and big money on Wall Street took no time to make an impact with a heavy volume of selling prior to the cash session open. The strength of the bears was apparent in both the S&P 500 futures as well as the Nasdaq futures. The Nasdaq was showing significant weakness worth noting.

Selling pressure grabs hold of market

The opening bell didn’t stop the selling pressure. Both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 were quickly brought lower by the bears. This selling pressure was persistent and strong. There was no sign of bullish price action for the greater part of the morning, continuing new lows on the day.

By midday the bears appeared to take a break, giving the bulls time to rise. The progress made by the bulls was far from impressive. The market was able to recover some of the losses, but ultimately there was not enough strength for the bulls to make much of an impact.

Once the bulls were done and exhausted, the bears quickly took back control of the market and proceeded to extend earlier losses. The midday rollover was equally as strong as it was when the market opened.

Selling pressure was fairly constant and pushed both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to continually make new lows on the day. The selling brought the market down to its “mean,” or the 21-day exponential moving average. This is a level that many traders are watching to see how the market reacts to the current economic environment.

Final hour leaves market down for the day

In the final hour of the market, the bulls were finally able to show bursts of life making small, yet explosive moves to the upside. These moves were equally met by selling at the top of their ranges.

When all was said and done, neither the bulls or the bears were able to make much progress in the last hour of the cash session. This left price to settle near the lows of the day. The S&P 500 finished the day with the biggest percentage drop in a single day since June 16.
At the close both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 futures were heavily negative. The S&P 500 futures closed down 2.08%, losing 88 points, while the Nasdaq futures closed down 2.68%, a loss of 355 points.