Good morning! The Dow lost another 120.24 points (-1%) on Friday in another volatile day of trading, although it was up off Thursday's lows. The S&P 500 fell 16.00 points (-1.1%), while the Nasdaq Composite slid 36.21 points (-1.5%). In just the two days last days of trading ending the month, the gains from February were erased. After opening lower on Thursday, the market has climbed to take back the losses, but on Friday it tried its best to retest those lows. It began with a small gap lower into the open, followed by a lot of congestion and choppy trading throughout the first half of the day.

The momentum played both sides throughout the morning, initially giving a strong upside bias on the moves within the range, but unable to shake the lows. Finally, with a volume decline on the last upside attempt as the gap filled and 5 minute 200 sma hit in the S&P 500 and Dow, the bulls gave up trying to support the lows and the pace turned over. The indices quickly moved back into the lows of the range and the Nasdaq in particular fell sharply over noon. The selling only stalled as the market came back into Thursday's opening prices. They then formed a bear flag into the 13:00 correction period and continued to a new low at 13:30 ET.

The drop into 13:30 ET marked a third wave of selling intraday coming out of the mid-day highs. Typically this means a correction is in the wings. It didn't mean a lot in the indices on Friday though. The market did slow after 13:30, pulling up to the 5 minute 20 sma, hugging it, and breaking higher. Nevertheless, that reprieve was short-lived. The 14:30 ET pop only took the indices in their 15 minute 20 sma, which was not very far away, before the rolled back over into the close, lacking any strong volume on the buying to show that the bounce had enticed many traders into action.







I expect market uncertainty and risk to remain high again this week. Investors are very nervous after last week's performance, which brought back flashbacks from the extreme selling that began with the new century. I was a bit side-tracked last week and didn't get much trading in. My mom is finally able to get a flight back into the mid-west after two storms completely shut down her state in the past week, so I'm going to be gone tomorrow as well since I'm trekking clear across the state to send her off, but will be back in the markets full time on Tuesday. Hopefully it brings with it a slow-down in this recent volatility, but more likely than not I'm just going to have to adjust my methods for the time being and just focus more on scalping so that I don't get chopped up intraday. There's going to be a number of big economic reports this week as well that will keep the market on its toes, such as January's Factory Orders on Tuesday and the Fed's Beige Book on Wednesday. Initial Claims and the rest of the jobs data rounds out the week.

Economic Reports and Events This Week
Monday: ISM Services for Feb. (10:00 am)
Tuesday: Productivity-Rev. for Q4 (8:30), Factory Orders for Jan. (10:00 am)
Wednesday: Crude Inventories 3/2 (10:30 am), Fed's Beige Book (2:00), Consumer Credit for Jan. (3:00 pm)
Thursday: Initial Claims 3/3 (8:30 am)
Friday: Average Workweek, Hourly Earnings, Nonfarm Payrolls, and Unemployment Rate for Feb. (8:30 am), Trade Balance for Jan. (8:30 am), Wholesale Inventories for Jan. (10:00 am)

Key Earnings Announcements This Week
Monday: TRMB, ADCT, FMSR, HBC, MIR, SYKE, COO,
Tuesday: CNO, CPRT, ICON, OPSW, PSS, QMAR, TSU, VOL, WRES
Wednesday: AEOS, BJ, CNQ, CWTR, RIO, CPA, FLML, FCEL, HMIN, KTO, MAMA, MATK, MW, PVX, SFNT, SKS, TLB, TIVO, WON
Thursday: AEG, ALTI, CNE, COST, FLE, GMKT, GG, HOV, ISIS, JUPM, NSM, NTO, SFE, TECD, TNE, OVEN, URBN, WIND, XOMA
Friday: BIG, ENCY
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance and Briefing.com. Occasionally changes will occur that are made after the posting of this column. This list is not a complete list of earnings, so always double check your positions!

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.