If…
We’ll title today’s
column "If." Three things come to mind as we begin to plan
for the long weekend. (1) If only there were peace in the world; (2) If only the
Red Sox could save their best for the late summer; and from a daytrader’s
perspective, (3) If only we could have more sessions like yesterday’s closing
hour and today’s opening hour (then perhaps we could spend more time
contributing to peace and also catch a few ballgames).
Larry Connors calls it buying fear and selling
greed. I’ll call it the same, just using intraday intervals. Yesterday’s
post-divergence reversal, which you were hopefully watching in light of my
comment, was a classic and included a beautiful cup-and-handle extension. Add in
a few rumors that exacerbated the move down (INTC Cap-Ex reductions) and up (bin
Laden), and as I
said yesterday, what seemed an awfully lot like selling just for the sake of
selling, and you have a volatile recipe for either late-day profits or whipsaws
depending on whether it is on the anticipatory wholesale or
all-too-often-fleeced retail side. Further, add in squeeze #2, aided and abetted
by a Globex futures climb which gapped only upon slightly stronger-than-expected
economic data and into a strong hourly downtrend headwind (sharply angled trend
support and price hitting the upper BB using our extreme 2.618 standard
deviation), and the gap between those whipsawed and making profits widens.
With respect to current action, the Qs are
testing intraday lows at midday, and for the moment, are holding above
Wednesday’s lows. With the
(
$SOX.X |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) testing key 500 support and the
Nasdaq futures testing key 1240 support, the afternoon may be make or break time
for the short term.
Thursday May 22,
2002 11:30 A.M. ET
Good Trading!