Quarter’s End, Minus Two

September 28, 2000
Kevin Haggerty

Something
for everyone yesterday as the
S&P 500 went down, up, down. It declined 0.8% from 9:35 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.,
advanced 1% to 12:35 p.m., then declined 1% to an intraday low of 1419.44 on the
3:35 p.m. bar, before getting rolled up into the close to 1426.55.

The best multipoint longs
in most of the stocks were entries at the 11:00 a.m. pullback, but they couldn’t
keep them up. They got EMC
(
EMC |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) and Oracle
(
ORCL |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating) moving early but it
was short-lived. You needed a fast trigger on the ejection button yesterday, and
that assumes you took some of those pullback entries. It wasn’t an easy day for
the long side.

The institutional activity
picked up, as institutional blocks increased to 25,801 and total volume to 1.2
billion. The volume ratio was virtually even at 49, with 535 million up and 549
million down.Â

The breadth was positive
for the first time this week, with +168 advancers over decliners, and the
unchanged volume jumped to 91 million from 40 and 57 on Monday and Tuesday. You
will often see that prior to a change in direction.

The buying and selling
pressure was a stand-off yesterday and as traders, you should be looking to ride
the winner. The S&P 500 is down 2.9% year-to-date, so it will take a
substantial rally today and Friday to get that back into the plus side. There
will be good reflex rallies, at a minimum, today and tomorrow but hopefully
longer than yesterday’s 11:00 a.m. – 12:35 p.m. daylight.

The
(
QQQ |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating)s closed at 89
1/2, just below its 200-day EMA of 90.26, so they are in a good position near a
pivot point if the buyers dominate today.

Trading is about
probabilities. There are no definites, and no one can tell you which of your
trades will be successful. That simply means you must do the work and prepare
your trading plan with high-probability type patterns. Don’t get caught up in
the whipsaw emotional activity that prevails in choppy markets. Wait on it.
Don’t force it.

With yesterday’s afternoon
selloff, there were many below-the-midpoint and bottom-of-the-range closes by
most of the key stocks. When that occurs, you are looking for entry the next day
from your intraday charts, if the buying pressure takes over and we get a rush
into Friday.

You are just reacting to
what you see and if it’s real, the market dynamics and breadth of green on your
monitor will tell you to pull the trigger. If we head south, you don’t need my
help to see yesterday’s lows on those stocks for continuation short entries.

face=”arial, helvetica”>(December Futures)
Fair Value	size=2>Buy	size=2>Sell
18.60	19.80	17.40

Pattern
Setups

The best-acting stocks yesterday were
some of the Generals’ largest positions, so it makes sense to get on them today
if they continue.Â

Also one stock that is below its
200-day moving average is
(
WMT |
Quote |
Chart |
News |
PowerRating). It
might get going above yesterday’s high and it could get a little
end-of-the-quarter markup. For those RST buyers out there that attended the
seminar, a move and a close above yesterday’s high puts it into an RST buy
pattern.

Have a good trading day.

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src=”https://tradingmarkets.com/media/images/comms/haggerty/kh092800-02.gif” width=”453″ height=”295″>

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Quarter’s End, Minus Two

BUY THE FEAR, SELL THE GREED

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