Volatility Index (VIX)

Bear trap in the form of a dead cat bounce Yesterday proved that trying to play the short side of this market so far this month and not aggressively taking gains along the way was a futile approach. With just yesterday's dead cat bounce, the market managed to wipe out a majority of the losses

Absence of Nuclear Armageddon leads to a possible bear trap Futures are spiking higher this morning. And for good reason – the world isn’t engulfed in Nuclear War. North Korea tried to launch a test rocket, but that rocket blew up in its face before it could even get off the launch pad. Good for

Price support holding on, moving averages are not On the surface, it wasn’t a huge sell-off for the stock market. Far from it. SPX finished about 0.33% lower on the day, which seems like a walk in the park at first glance.  But under the surface, things were far worse.  The breadth was far

The S&P 500 is stuck in a long drawn out triangle pattern but refuses to give up the 50-day moving average in the process. Should the market hold and eventually rally, you are going to need a good list of bullish stocks that you can fall back on and trade from. That is what I

Fed offers up a stock market beatdown I don’t get all the annoyed by the stock market all that much. Sure it can do things that will make you scratch your head, but yesterday’s manufactured afternoon sell off coming from the Fed proclaiming that stock prices were a bit too high, was not something I

My stock market trading plan today Bears had the opportunity to really drive this market lower. It was right in their hands. The result? Same as 99% of the other instances. They get the charts to line up for them, make the market look top heavy and ready to rollover and then they disappear. The

My stock market trading plan today Another dose of “Buy the Dip”. At one point it was down as much as 18 points. I kid not, but once the afternoon rolled around, that 18 points shrank to just under 4 points by the close of business. In the meantime, that kind of price action leaves

April Stock Market If you believe in old stock market cliches, then you’ll know that April represents, in theory, the last good month of trading for the bulls before they “Sell in May and Go Away!”. But lets face, it, yes, the volume in the summer is lower, and sell-offs tend to happen more often

Trading Calendar Quarter End in Sight Slight open lower yesterday quickly evaporated as the market engaged in its normal morning routine – rally higher and into the green before the market closes, and usually much sooner. The biggest risk these days tends to be a gap higher which has the highest chance of being faded

Dead cat bounce until proven otherwise. It’ll probably take the market establishing new all-time highs in order for me to not view this market rally the last two days from a dead cat bounce perspective. There has been some technical improvements, but even still, the downtrend off of the March highs are still in