Swing Trading and the View from the Sidelines
A few days ago I asked whether or not buyers would be bold enough to make up days in a row. On Thursday, we got our answer.
Stocks sold off late in the day on Thursday. In fact, I suspect more than a few traders thought that we were out of the woods as the final hour or two of trading grew near. But in a market that has been as weak as this one, overbought conditions — or, more accurately, a mere whiff of overbought conditions — can be all that are required to send buyers back into hiding below their desks.
This isn’t necessarily a bearish development. Stocks rally from bottoms by managing to overcome the selling that is endemic late in significant declines. Traders become so mesmerized by the selling that occurs as markets get overbought that, sometimes, they miss the tiny incremental moves higher the market makes as each sell-off becomes less and less severe and the overbought conditions are tolerated for longer and longer periods of time.
But this is not our focus. For now, we remain on the side of what is working, and what is working is a wager against stocks and ETFs as they become overbought and their Short Term PowerRatings drop and a bet in favor of stocks and ETFs with high Short Term PowerRatings, the stocks and ETFs that have been put on sale through the selling of others.
Yesterday there were an exceptionally low number of quality opportunities for stock and ETF traders. As of Thursday’s close, the high Short Term PowerRatings prospects are even dimmer, if that can be believed. The primary trading skill for the time being continues to be mastery of the art of not-trading.
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