I know that you are reading this to find out what I think is going on with this market.

None of the recent market action stretching back to the middle of August surprises me. My gut feeling was that something was going to happen.

We had been in such a narrow trading range most of the year that I felt like if the market broke up, we could be off to the races. If it broke down, then maybe weakness would follow.

Unfortunately, technically, the market has broken down. Now the question is are we headed into a bear market or could we be just be searching for a bottom. I have no clue.

I just watch the trends. Right now, the trend is not good.

However, the good news is that trends can be broken. If we suddenly had an upward move of 10 percent or so, that would likely change the trend. Or, we could be headed lower.

Remember, the market is never wrong. You and I are wrong but never the market.

It is crazy out there right now so don’t try to figure it out. In the past couple of weeks I have been watching the Dow Jones industrial average and the volatility of sometimes going up and down hundreds of points in one day.

During one nine-day stretch of trading like that, the index was pretty much the same after nine days as it had started on day one. I mean the up one day and down the next had resulted in little or no change over nine days.

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As I write this on Thursday we have no clue where the markets might end up today or on Friday. When you read this, you will know.

So far, as of this moment, it has not been a disaster. As the markets opened this morning the Standard and Poor’s 500 was down 5.7 percent for the year to date. Granted it is down about 8 percent from the highs but was a lot lower. It has made a recovery of sorts.

The Dow is down 8.8 percent as of this morning but the Dow is only 30 stocks and is not a good measure in my view. Again, all these stats are as of the close of business on Wednesday. None of these numbers mean much because of the volatility.

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You do need to remember one thing. When the Dow was 7000 back a few years, a 2 percent move was 140 points. Now a 2 percent move is about 325 points.

This is all about bigger numbers. Most of you may have more money now since the markets have recovered over the past years so your losses look bigger and your gains also look bigger. It is all about the numbers.

The Nasdaq Composite is about even for the year. Small cap stocks, smaller companies, are down about 4.7 percent and Midcaps are down a little over 3 percent.

If we look at the Wilshire 5000 index of most stocks traded, it is down about 4 percent for the years.

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Boys and girls, this is not bad. It is not pleasant to watch the volatility but to this point the averages look OK.

The problem is if you own individual stocks, some have been hammered. Some big oils are down 40 percent or more and some of the smaller energy companies are down a whole lot more than that.

You can look about anywhere across the sectors and find companies that have been punished mercilessly. Then again, some stocks have held up well.

Watch the market. It will tell you what is going on.

If we go below the lows hit around Aug. 21-22, then perhaps we go lower. If not, then we may move higher.

Here in the U.S. we are OK. No great shakes, but to me the economy looks OK.

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The woman I live with, OK my wife, came into the man cave the other day and asked me how my blood work went. I had some routine stuff done.

I told her that everything was fine until the tech got mad at me.

She looked at me with that frown of hers and asked what I did. Well, I told her, the tech gave me a little plastic container and pointed the way to the bathroom, I came out with nothing in the container. The tech wanted to know what happened.

I said “Nothing, I didn’t need it. They had a commode in there.”

The wife doesn’t think I’m funny.

Howie Pentony is a Portersville client portfolio manager.