Is the “cult of equity” dead and buried?  (FT Alphaville)

Bad day for stocks, Monday. A bad day. Not a terrible day. Not a crash day. Just a bad day.

The Dow fell 140 points. This was baaaad…because it shows that the stock market does not really buy Bernanke’s storyline.

You’ll recall that when we left off last week, Ben Bernanke assured the world that while the recovery was not exactly what he had hoped for, he nevertheless had the situation in hand. He said he had the tools necessary to fix the problem and would do whatever was required.

In the end it was a clean break; semiconductors gave up nearly 2% and the last hope for a bull trap went away. The nascent CCI 'buy' signal disappeared with the losses - it's looking ugly for the semiconductor index

($SOX)

Stock futures fall ahead of data, Fed minutes-
"Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 47 points to 9,932, and S&P 500 futures dropped 5.9 points to 1,039.2. Nasdaq 100 futures declined 11.25 points to 1,757.5, as a sharp selloff in Tokyo and ongoing economic worries soured sentiment before the release of U.S. housing and consumer-confidence data."

I must confess that I too am confused, frustrated and starting to lose both my patience and my motivation. I read other blogs, newsletters, financial sites and come away convinced that no one knows with any degree of certainty what's coming down the road.