Good day!  A slew of economic data, earnings and post-electoral reactions weighed heavily on the market on Thursday. The indices moved higher after the close on Wednesday, but then accomplished very little until the intraday economic releases. The premarket data had the weakest influence on the market.  After hitting record highs heading into fall, the trade deficit narrowed 6.8% in September. Imports fell, particularly those that were energy-related, while exports rose. In other news, first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell by 20,000 to 308,000 last week.

A little later in the morning came the consumer sentiment report. The Commerce Dept. showed a decline in consumer sentiment to 92.3 in November, down from October's 93.6. It was at this point that the market began to give in to the bears. At 10:00 ET the wholesale inventory report came out, showing a build-up in inventories for September by 0.8%, while sales fell 1.2%. This typically has little influence on the market and held no incentive to sway the bears from their path.

From that point onward the pace in the market began to slow with each attempt at a move higher. The 10:15 ET reversal period held as the gap in the Nasdaq closed and the S&P 500 found support at the 15 minute 20 simple moving average and 5 minute 200 sma. The market took about twice as long, however, to rally as it did to fall, and even then the indices did not make it back to the absolute highs of the day. Instead they held the middle of the opening congestion before falling into a second wave of selling.

The large percentage retracement of the initial decline gave additional support to the morning lows and it took another shorter correction off the support before the lower end of the intraday trend channel broke. This third test of lows pushed through them as it came out of the 13:00 ET reversal period. The lighter volume on each of the upside moves within the trading channel helped the sellers gain momentum as those lows gave way.

The new downtrend found initial support at the morning lows in the Nasdaq, as well as its 5 minute 200 sma. The turn-over in pace held as the market based along the support until the 5 minute 20 sma resistance caught up. At that point the 14:00 ET reversal period was hitting and the market again began to sell off. This decline lasted well over an hour until the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Ind. Ave. closed in on their 15 minute 200 simple moving averages and the Nasdaq hit the lows of the prior afternoon. The last 45 minutes of the day were spent in a consolidation along the lows of the day.

Among the top losers on the session were the drug makers, such as Merck (MRK), which lost 3.3%, and Pfizer (PFE), which fell 2.9% on the session. The losses were attributed to concerns by top producers that the Democrats will push for lower drug prices. Top sectors included gold (+5%), oil services, computer hardware, and networkers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI) fell 73.24 points (-0.6%). The S&P 500 lost 7.39 points (-0.5%). The Nasdaq Composite weathered the selling slightly better, but still lost 8.93 points (-0.4%).

I am still expecting this type of back and forth action to persist on the daily charts as the market continues to correct from last month's highs, so my bias has yet to change in terms of the longer term outlook. The shorter term outlook heading into Friday favors corrective action intraday off the support that hit before the close. A slower correction will make it easier to again break lower on a 15-30 minute short setup.

Note: I will be out of town next week for the Online Trading Expo in Vegas. Have a great trading week and will return the following Monday.

Economic Reports and Events
Nov. 10: -
Nov. 13: Treasury Budget for Oct. (2:00 pm)
Nov. 14: Core PPI, PPI, Retail Sales, and Retail Sales ex-auto for Oct. (8:30 am), Business Inventories for Sep. (10:00 am), FOMC Minutes Oct. 25 (2:00 pm)
Nov. 15: NY Empire State Index for Nov. (8:30 am), Crude Inventories 11/10 (10:30 am)

Key Earnings Announcements
Nov. 10: SIL, ERF, HEW, IAG, PBR, CXW
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance. Occasionally changes will occur that are made after the posting of this column.

Toni Hansen is President and Co-founder of the Bastiat Group, Inc., and runs the popular Trading From Main Street. She can be reached at Toni@tradingfrommainstreet.com.