The markets traded lower Monday and Tuesday, but bounced significantly before the end of the trading session and gave traders hop for the next day. But that wasn’t true today. SPX, RUT and the NASDAQ composite all closed at or near the lows of the day. SPX closed at $2026, down $34. RUT dropped $26 to close at $1162, and NASDAQ lost $82 to close at $4684. It seems like yesterday that analysts were speculating about NASDAQ breaking $5000.

As one might expect, volatility popped up significantly today with the VIX closing at 18.5%, up nearly four points in a single trading session.

Trading volume was also up, with 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. The 50 dma is 2.2B; trading in the S&P rose slightly above the 50 dma yesterday and rose a bit higher today. Trading on the NYSE rose 4%, but fell 8% on NASDAQ – not sure what that was about.

As always, the talking heads were searching for answers for the market’s drop; the consensus appears to be lower oil prices. Lower oil prices hurt tar sands and oil shale producers, but they help everyone else.

I think a better answer is simply that this strong bull market needed a rest. $2015 marks the September high on SPX and is the next support level. But today's trading seemed more serious than just "taking a breather". We'll see... Where did Santa Claus go?