A long way to nowhere

S&P500 daily at end of day

End of Day Update

MARKET BEHAVIOR
A long way to nowhere as the market opened lower, then broke into the green, before ultimately finishing flat.

MARKET SENTIMENT
While we held 1,920 support, the market had a hard time finding dip-buyers willing to chase prices higher.  Most often capitulation bottoms are violent whipsaws with decisive rebounds.  Treading water at this level is anything but decisive and shows we haven’t reached such extreme oversold levels that the market couldn’t help but snap back.

While we could be forming a rounded base, there is far too much emotion in the market for such a boring move.  Every day we fail to escape this gravity is one more day where late-to-the-party dip-buyers work up the nerve to buy support.  But the more of these guys that get in, the greater the risk of crashing through support as we undercut all the automatic stop-losses forming under our feet.

TRADING OPPORTUNITIES
Expected Outcome:
This is nothing more than another buyable dip in a secular bull market, but given the market’s inability to bounce shows we have not reached extreme oversold levels yet.  This means we likely have another whoosh lower when the market undercuts all the stop-losses accumulating under support.

Alternate Outcome:
The huge spike in volume over the last several days shows many of the willing sellers have already sold, meaning there is a far smaller pool of prospective sellers remaining.  Markets bottom when everyone is convinced the selloff will continue and this selloff has everyone nervous.  We will reach a point where there is no one left to sell and the market rebounds on tight supply.  Every day of sideways churn brings us one day closer to that day where we run out of sellers.

Trading Plan:
The longer the market holds in this trading range, the more likely it is we will break through support.  While we are close to a bottom, the market is not acting like it is oversold yet.  Bears can hold their shorts and dip-buyers should step back and wait for another whoosh.

Plan your trade; trade your plan