Uptrend under pressure

Leading stocks had a rough day, falling far more than the modest pullback in the indexes. Live by high-beta stocks, die by high-beta stocks. While today was ugly, taken in context of last week’s progress, we have only given up a portion of the recent gains and are not in hot water yet. We continue have a some cushion before we risk breaking resistance and making new relative lows.

The problem for the current market comes when bringing in the volume of the up-days vs the down-days. The largest volume days have either been down-days or stalling-days ending with little gain.

As it stands, the market seems more skewed toward the bearish case and that is why IBD’s Big Picture moved its market outlook to Market Under Pressure, but all that will be rendered irrelevant if Friday’s employment numbers are outstanding. Meeting expectations or missing expectations will most likely allow the bear case to develop. At this point it is too late to predict what the employment numbers will be and we are left reacting to the aftermath once it is released. Regardless of the fundamentals, we need to trade our plan and respond to the price action no matter what we think should happen.

As for individual stocks, KORS, FRAN, INVN, and others had rough days giving up a large chunk of their recent gains. But that is the nature of trading high-beta stocks. One day you are a hero, the next you are a goat. But there is no such thing as easy money in the markets and the stocks with the greatest potential also are the most gut-wrenching. If it were easy, everyone would do it. Stick to your rules and use those to dictate how you respond to this market and try to keep emotional impulses in check.

Stay save and lets hope for the best Friday.