<p>As of 9:47 am Eastern, the Dow is down 12 points, the tech-heavy NASDAQ up 4.57 points, and the S and P 500 is down 0.94 points. Asian markets closed mixed with the Nikkei up 0.27 percent, and the Hang Seng bluechip in Hong Kong up half a percent. Almost all European benchmarks are trading in the green in afternoon trading: London – FTSE100 up three quarters of a percent, Paris – CAC40 up slightly by 0.06 percent, Frankfurt – up a tad bit by 0.01 percent (<a title="Yahoo Market Overview" href="http://finance.yahoo.com/marketupdate/overview"><font color="#92b211">Yahoo Market Overveiw</font></a>).</p>
<p>In the absence of news about hedge funds, and stocks still oversold on a shortterm basis, bargain hunters are bound to reach for some cheap stocks.</p>
<p><a title="Afraid to Trade Blog" href="http://blog.afraidtotrade.com/"><font color="#92b211">Afraid to Trade.com Blog</font></a>:</p>
<p>“The last two weeks has been some of the most volatile trading in the last few years, but certainly not some of the worst times. The $VIX made fresh five year highs (”fear index”) recently as well.</p>
<p>While the daily charts of the major indexes appear fragmented and broken from a technical standpoint, the weekly charts show a contrasting picture – one of an “orderly” pullback into support which has happened two times previously in the last year.”</p>