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Volatility remains high as Thursday's impressive rally regained about about half of Wednesday's bigger losses. We're in a period where 2% moves are minor in comparison to what we've seen, but at least the 9% to 12% moves have backed off. The Dow gained 470-points and a dramatic rally in oil was a major catalyst.

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]New month, new direction as the relief rally ended with a thud. It wasn't too much of a surprise as it seems everyone has been anticipating a possible test of the lows, but it's always interesting to see the switch from bullish behavior to bearish in such a short amount of time. The Dow lost 974-points yesterday, or 4.44%, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq losing about the same percentage. The Transports, financials, and small caps lagged with 5% to 6% losses.

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It was another volatile day for stocks on Tuesday with modest early gains turning into sharper losses by the close while portfolio managers were finishing up their rebalancing for the new quarter. The Dow lost 410-points, closing near the lows of the day and ending an historical month and quarter for the stock market.

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Coming into this week, every Monday in March had been quite negative for stocks, so of course late on Friday there was a rush for the exits before the closing bell. So, Mr. Market did it again and went against the pattern and we got a big rally on Monday, although it was only about enough to take most of the indices back to Friday's highs before the sell-off. Still significant. That has set up some interesting patterns on the index charts. The Dow gained 691-points with gains over 3% for the ...

Stocks opened lower on Friday, battled back all day to nearly erase those losses, but a late selling surge pushed the indices toward their lows by the close. Mondays have been so bad in March that traders may have been rushing for the exits to raise cash, because on the flip side, Tuesdays have actually been quite good this month. There's a clear pattern over the past several weeks.

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