Today’s Trading Plan: Volume Continues To Weaken

Technical Outlook:

• S&P 500 (SPX) breakout from Friday, lacked any real follow through yesterday. Need to see more buying today or risk nullifying the breakout. 
• Watch converging support of the 5, 10, and 20-day moving averages going forward. 
• SPDRs S&P 500 ETF (SPY) volume was the worst that I’ve seen. Nothing compares to it. Only 39m shares traded yesterday. That was 15% less than the lowest volume day of the year on Thursday. Literally there was no price movement. 
• Volatility keeps dropping overall, but had a minor bounce yesterday of less than 1% yesterday. Still at 11.5. CBOE Volatility Index (VIX)
• Consolidation for almost two days on SPX 30 minute chart. Watch for a move out of the range to confirm future direction. 
• 2200 is still within reach for SPX. 
• The bulk of the earnings season is behind us. No significant disasters from the big names that reported that negatively impacted the market as a whole. 
• Overall, August is the worst performing month for the Dow and S&P 500. 
• At this point, and with the election ahead, I’d expect the market to keep rallying higher. I don’t expect there to be a rate hike between now and the election. To do so would impact the market and thereby the election. I don’t think the Fed wants that, particularly since Trump has indicated that he would replace Yellen. 

My Trades:

• Did not sell any of my swing-trades yesterday. 
• Added one long position yesterday and one short position. 
• May add 1-2 new swing-trades to the portfolio today. 
• Will consider hedging the portfolio as well with a short position. 
• Currently 60% Long / 10% Short / 30% Cash
• Join me each day for all my real-time trades and alerts in the SharePlanner Splash Zone

Chart for SPX: