By chance I saw someone was asking how often I update my watch lists. The answer is: constantly, and in real-time. You can pretty much count on those lists representing my holdings at any given moment.
As for the market, I find this graph of the T-Bill rate fascinating, since it shows the continued willingness of the investing public to accept 0% returns instead of risking it on just about anything else.
On the one hand, there have been some really beefy returns on battered issues over the past week or so. I've taken profits here and there, but I've still got many long positions; here is one of them, which is spite of today's drubbing overall, held its own decently well.
At the same time, many issues have pushed themselves to the point where they are attractive shorts for the umpteenth time. As regular readers know, I bought my first FAZ ever for the first time today, and it wasn't a small position, either. Here's a good example of why I think the financials are heading for some weakness:
I continued to watch the EUR/USD very closely. This has been surprisingly strong, although it still has not broken out yet.
I have done quite well with the ES over the past couple of days. There is a bunch of trading from 895 to 915 that I think is going to act as a barrier to much upside action. I've trimmed my short position to 10 contracts on the ES, and I've tightened up my stop. There aren't any big economic reports until Thursday, but at that point you'll basically have four big days in a row packed with reports.
Take note of how abruptly the Dow turned yesterday once it reached the 23.6% level (shown here in bold); the bulls are eventually going to push their way higher, but not after getting severely bloodied. It's going to be a really slow, tough, ugly slog higher.
I've noticed many indices and ETFs are bumping against their 50 day moving averages. EEM is a very heavily-traded example (and notice the doji harami pattern).
The $NDX has this same relationship with its moving average, in addition to a decent shooting star.
As for energy, yesterday's rise seems to have been a one-hit wonder, but it's still really – – dare I use the word? – – cheap. Any sustained push higher on energy's part will do very powerful things for the market in general. It, like the EUR/USD, merits close watching.
I had been sort of ticked off at the market last month, but it's getting to be fun to trade again. I've got a terrific mix of long and short positions, and things……..for the moment………..make sense if you stay on top of the charts. Casual observers of the markets are guaranteed to be confounded for a long time to come.
