Today’s figures will look pretty ordinary on the news tonight, but really, could have been worse – not to say it was good. Given the declines of US indices over night – Dow Jones -3.2%, S&P 500 -3.7% and Nasdaq Composite -3.9% – a decline of 2.3% for the XJO doesn’t seem so bad. It closed 102 points lower but was down by as much as 141 points soon after the open, so a little ground made up by a slow grinding ‘rally’ over the course of the remainder of the session. No surprises on the sector board which is all red., the hardest hit being Financials, Information Technology, Materials and Metals/Mining. The sell off overnight on US and European markets seemed reactionary to more debt issues, this time Italy and its bond yields passing seven percent. Today’s price action was enough to trigger several stops in the Discretionary Setups, given they are usually tight, but the systematic portfolios stood up well.

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