Happy Father’s Day StockBandits!
The indexes finished last week mixed, as the NAZ lost more ground while the S&P, RUT, and DJIA did their best to stabilize after nonstop recent weakness. The S&P broke its 6-week losing streak, although only by 0.52 points, which of course failed to impress anyone.
That’s a great example of how the upside has been in this market for the past few weeks, as attempts at rallies have not only failed to close near the highs of those sessions, but we’ve seen selling pressure immediately resume, keeping a lid on rally attempts.
Volatility has picked up as well, which is evident with the VIX advancing from the mid-teens to the low-20’s. On a more practical measure, however, we’ve seen more frequent opening gaps in both directions, some wide-ranging bars, and plenty of intraday reversals as well.
Clearly, it’s a tricky market at the moment. The short side has been a difficult one to trade, as the turn lower came on a big reversal day and we’ve not seen a clean second-chance entry emerge since then with the relentless selling. On the flip side, the number of stocks which were exhibiting bullish characteristics on a technical basis have fallen victim to widespread selling, negating nearly all those patterns which had been building.
This doesn’t so much spell doom-and-gloom for us as traders (no setups!), but instead it reminds us of the importance of shifting to the sidelines when few opportunities exist (protection!). Our ability to maneuver quickly as individual traders is a huge advantage at all times, and particularly during correction phases like this one we’re reminded that the safety of the sidelines is always available to us for purposes of protecting both our actual and psychological capital.
Emerging from a market pullback with cash on hand and confidence which isn’t shattered puts us miles ahead of those who now need to dig out of a hole in their account (and mentally), allowing us to capitalize on opportunities when they begin to return. That could happen at any time, but at the moment caution is still warranted, so I’m sticking with a day trading timeframe heading into Monday’s session.
I’ll cover my game plan for tomorrow in the video, and as always, feel free to share your own thoughts, trade ideas, and questions down below in the comments section.
Here is tonight’s video:
The Bandit Broadcast Video – Click to Watch!
–
Video Stocks Discussed: BIG, ZAGG, JNPR, DECK, OPEN
Swing Trading Candidates:
NONE TONIGHT
[table “67” not found /]
The Hit List is a separate post which contains discussion on open positions and swing trade stops and targets, so be sure to check it for further details on swing trades.
