Thursday, June 22, 2006

Light Volume Pullback Eats Into A Lot Of Yesterday's Gains; Lack Of Follow-Through Shows Bears Are Still In Control.

Stocks could not muster a follow-through today as the major market indexes gave up a chunk of the gains they made yesterday. The Nasdaq led to the downside with a .85% loss, the Dow Jones followed with a .54% loss, the SP 500 fell .53%, and the SP 600 fell .28%.

Volume was lower on both exchanges, continuing the low volume trend of the last four days. Breadth was negative by a 2-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and a 3-to-2 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The failure to produce a follow-through shows how weak the market still is. The only saving point the bulls can say today is that volume was lighter on today's pullback than on yesterday's rally. I say, "big deal." The volume is so much lower than the 50 day volume average that it is obvious to me institutions have nothing to do with this oversold bounce that naturally HAS to happen.

The current action, if nothing else, is just confusing. Trying to be a bull or bear in this market environment right now is just silly. Obviously, now is not the best time to swing for the fences by putting on heavy long or short positions. The market doesn't even know what it is doing.

If the market can not make up its own mind, what makes you think you can outsmart it? I'll give you the answer. You can not. That is why I still say it is best to just relax and not trade here until things are more clear.

Keep scanning your charts and keep your watchlist updated. You never know when a gem will show up here or there that will surprise you with a nice pattern. Those trades are what keeps me awake and active as I wait for the proper conditions to unfold.

Nothing is going to change until after we get the Fed meeting out of the way. Until that happens, we will have to deal with this intraday volatility that whips the market around from day to day but ultimately after a week leaves us unchanged.

Great luck, keep sitting on your hands while keeping your list up-to-date, and keep smiling. I shall see you tomorrow.

New Swing Longs: NONE

New Swing Shorts: FRZ POOL NRGY TOC ISCA SOMX CKXE BBBY

Longs Outperforming: HSR-78 CTCI-44 GPIC ABI PMTR-45 AOB CXW SKIL PAY-35 EGOV LYV CBEY OMNI-136 TMG

Shorts Outperforming: SIVB SWC JOYG BPFH ELY TMO DIA EWY CLF WSM DB ILF AMAT FCX IYM EWZ RTP RF NUE STLD RS ATI MNST UAG TRI AVID MEOH LFC ZRAN OCAS UNS WDR DFG FLA WABC MAFB BTH FIX IKN APOL

Stocks On Radar Screen: ABFS NTGR HOLX XNR

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How bout that HSR, OMNI?

Sort of amazing how there are almost always a few stocks that go up in a bad market. Remember TASR a couple years ago?

ININ is one I bought recently

Thanks for checking out my blog- I made it to involve more people into my otherwise insulated (maybe it should be padded) world of being a trader.

The downside of it so far is that I have been looking too much at macro stuff that doesnt matter- what do I buy and sell?..

I have some ideas about that, but for now I'm just working on my craft.

Keep up the great work, Josh!

I completely agree that everyone should read Reminiscences-also liked how I trade and invest in Stocks and Bonds by Wyckoff.

Elliot
Corvallis, OR

Anonymous said...

No blog for Friday June 23?

Anonymous said...

Elliot,

I have been watching ININ, although I haven't watched it this past week!

I gotta take a look at it again.