It was not clear whether the crash was a terrorist related event but the market softened somewhat as the news circulated. A sharper selloff started immediately after an anthrax case was reported in Florida just before the close. The earnings misses and analyst downgrades are so prolific that people are starting to avoid worrying about them since prices seem to have discounted most of the bad news already. The Russell 2000 almost made it. This shows that prices are now back within more normal ranges as the market settles down after the panic bottom.
Most technical indicators are fairly orderly.
The VIX remains rather high in the 33-34 range so there is still some nervousness in the air. Occasional notes of optimism are surfacing as some of the major tech names like CSCO and DELL indicate that business conditions may be stabilizing or improving slightly. I expect that we will now trade in a range for a couple of months with negative terrorist related news pushing prices down and positive military related events pushing prices up. If the consumer does not pull back and if it looks like the introduction of Windows XT is creating some excitement we could get a year-end surge in the computer related tech sector. The employment report was just released and the market seems to be reacting with a slight upward bias.