Surprise Greece unable to form Government Sending Stocks Lower

The only positive news on today’s session was the fact homebuilders are most optimistic in five years. Even Empire manufacturing ticked higher than expect, but the market was unable to take its eyes off the situation going on in Europe. For the second straight day the intraday rally was faded and during the final hour it accelerated. News out of Greece regarding the inability to pick a government provided enough ammo to sellers to push the indexes to the lows of the session. There does not appear to be an end in sight here and not the type of market you’d want to bring FB public. Big Wave Trading has been under a sell signal for a bit here and now we can see why. The market remains oversold, but if the market has taught us anything it is these conditions can last for quite some time. It wouldn’t surprise us if the market produced a rally over the next day or two to resolve some oversold conditions. However, it is quite clear the trend is down and any counter trend rally should be shorted. We can blame the situation in Europe or even point to the fiscal disaster awaiting the United States. It simply doesn’t matter, price wins and we’ll follow its lead. Just to throw a monkey wrench into the mix this week happens to be options expiry (OPEX). Always appears the market tends to get into a volatility craze prior to OPEX. Today we saw the VIX index multi-month highs confirming the selling we see on the S&P 500. This goes for the NASDAQ too, but the S&P 500 has been leading us lower and given the moves in the VIX it appears the selling isn’t done. All signals are pointing to this market pushing lower and there is not much we can do about it. Sure a bounce may occur, but it won’t have the gusto it would need to kick off a new market rally. Too much damage has occurred and it will take a lot to repair the damage. Cut your losses and enjoy the ride.