One of the newsletters I read had a great headline recently: Rotation Bewilderment. In the best of times, the talking heads on CNBC and their guests appear to have two note cards. One is the explanation if the market is up today, the other is the explanation for the market trading lower. Deliver these explanations with an air of confidence and everyone is reassured, “He understands!”. But more and more analysts are throwing in the towel. It is hard to fathom this market’s moves. The futures were looking pretty ugly this morning, and the market did open down. But then it recovered almost all of those losses. Rotation bewilderment indeed.

SPX closed down $6 at $2099 after hitting a low of $2086. RUT behaved similarly, trading down to $1218 before recovering to close at $1233, down just three dollars. Volatility was unchanged with the VIX closing at 13.9%. Trading volume was roughly flat with 1.8 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading was up 6% on the NYSE, but was down 1% on NASDAQ.

Looking at the economic data for answers wasn’t helpful. The only significant news today was the JOLTS job opening report with 4.99 million openings for March, down from February’s 5.14 million. Market movement would suggest that this slightly negative report was revised higher later in the morning, but it wasn't. The economic news of late has generally been mediocre; analysts predicted doom and gloom for this earnings season, but it was a surprisingly normal earnings cycle. Perhaps that is the basis for this market, just wandering sideways, much as the overall economy. Couple that with the price volatility resulting from the high frequency algos and you have this market.

Tomorrow brings retail sales data, but will that make a difference?