The bears had control of the stock market today as each of the major indexes declined at least 0.9%. Today's action was reminiscent of the type of trading we saw last week with investor selling pressure strong in down sessions. In contrast, during recent up day's buying from investors has been weak. Market breadth was weak today.

The stock market rose today with the major indexes gaining between 0.4% and 0.6% and was able to shrug off some bad economic news on both the U.S. and international front. Trading activity was calm and didn't indicate investors were buying shares strongly. Market breadth was mostly on the positive side.

The general stock market declined once again for the fourth straight session on the S&P 500 (SPY) and Nasdaq Composite (QQQQ). Market breadth was negative and the action of investors showed them selling energy based shares and light crude oil declining over 9% to finish at approximately $99 after recently trading near the $115 area.

For the second session in a row stocks saw declines. The main difference between today's session and the prior session was market activity indicated investors were taking some of their profits off the table today. The Nasdaq Composite (QQQQ) saw the biggest declines out of the three major indexes as it fell 0.8%.