Why the Heat Will Stay on Stocks This Summer

Anyone who broke a sweat over last week's blistering stock market sell-off better get used to it. With the Dow ($INDU) again below 10,000 and off nearly 5% on the year, it's shaping up to be a long, torpid summer for U.S. equity investors, says Jason Weisberg, a trader with Seaport Securities.

"I don't see any break in the near future," Weisberg says from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYX), essentially because it's impossible to predict when the market will stop reacting -- and overreacting -- to the European debt crisis. "The lack of a clear, unified voice coming out of the European Union is what's scaring investors."

And as long as the euro continues to get pummeled and the dollar keeps climbing higher, the stock market is going to continue to languish, Weisberg says. Not because of the strong-dollar impact on corporate earnings but rather because it means the flight to safety remains in play. "The European debt crisis is really the number one driver of the lackluster performance of the U.S. equity market," Weisberg says.

Until investors have confidence that the crisis has been contained "in its fullest and there is a cement bottom," Weisberg figures the Dow will remain stuck in a tight-but-volatile 300-point range.