Today’s Trading Plan: Can August Break the Current Trend

Technical Outlook:

• After a 3-day bounce, the market pulled back on Friday and formed a bearish engulfing candle pattern over the last two days. 
• It is essential here that the bulls continue the pattern to new all-time highs. By failing to make new all-time highs, the market will create a lower-high and a higher-low, adding additional directionless inside of a range bound market. 
• SPX still holding all the moving averages. 
• Volume ticked slightly higher and back to average levels on Friday. 
• For the bears, pushing below last Monday’s lows is absolutely key here which sits at 2063. 
• Inverse head and shoulders pattern on the daily chart that will confirm if price action can break through to new all-time highs. 
• VIX action is concerning from a bullish standpoint as it managed to hold year long support below – the same area where each downside reversal on SPX has occurred at in the past five months. 
• T2108 (% of stocks trading above the 40-day moving average) diverged from Friday’s price action, by climbing an additional 10.1% to 37.5%. 
• Oil is once again become a problem for the market again, as it broke the March lows on Friday. 
• Nasdaq is by far the best chart among the indices right now. Others are very much range bound, but the Nasdaq has established a higher-high and higher-low. If Apple (AAPL) can actually join this rally, which is a large % of the Nasdaq, the rally could really take off. 
• The 30 minute chart of SPX is starting to look range bound. However, there is still a pattern of higher-highs and higher-lows. 
• My biggest ongoing concern with the market right now is the inability to establish new, clear-cut all-time highs that leads to an expansion of price as well. Instead SPX gets bogged down in the 2120-2130’s range and reverses course each time. 

My Trades:

• No new swing-trades added to the portfolio. 
• Closed out COST at $145.49 for a 0.6% gain. 
• 30% Long / 70% cash. 
• Remain long: UPRO at 68.26, QLD at 77.84, NFLX at 107.63.
• Will look to add 1-2 new positions today if the market continues to trend favorably. 
• Join me each day for all my real-time trades and alerts in the SharePlanner Splash Zone

Chart for SPX: