The Tail Continues to Wag the Dog

From 1990 to 1997, Kevin Haggerty served as Senior Vice President for Equity Trading at Fidelity Capital Markets, Boston, a division of Fidelity Investments. He was responsible for all U.S. institutional Listed, OTC and Option trading in addition to all major Exchange Floor Executions. For a free trial to Kevin’s Daily Trading Report, please click here.

The SPX reversed Thursday’s +2.3% gain with a -2.8% loss on Friday. The $US dollar continues to wag the market, and when the dollar is being sold in the carry trade to buy equities and commodities, the direction is up, but when the dollar turns higher it puts immediate pressure on equities and commodities and we get significant downside moves relative to the % advance in the USD.

I said that the SPX +2.3% bounce last Thursday from the 50DEMA had the crowd looking for another strong move up, but I also said that the market rarely accommodates the “crowd”, so it should be no surprise if the SPX declines into the mid to late November key time zone before any seasonal rally into year end. I haven’t changed my view on that.

The SPX has declined -6.5% in 8 days from the 1101.36 high (10/22) to the 1029.38 intraday low yesterday, before closing at 1042.88 (+0.7%).  It is ST-O/S, and there is a positive 5 RSI divergence in progress, so a quick bounce would be no surprise, followed by more downside into the November key time zone.

This is the most significant pullback since the -9.1% leg down from the 6/11/09 956 high to the 869 7/8/09 low. It is also significant in that the BKX is trading below its 200DEMA, while the TRAN traded below the 200DEMA yesterday but closed a few points above it. Both declines were from double tops, while the SPX high at 1101.36 was an RST sell setup with significant negative momentum divergences, which I have covered in previous commentaries.

Initial SPX support is the 1020 zone +/- a few points, but the key zone is down at 990-985, which includes the 200DEMA and some other price symmetry that is detailed in the Trading Service. This volatility has been great for our day trading strategies, and it doesn’t matter whether you trade futures, index proxy’s, ETFs, or stocks, because the strategies are the same for all of them.

Have a good trading day.

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