Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Don't Anticipate... I'm talking to myself

Not too much anyway. I think that's my next personal challenge. I see something on a chart and I try to anticipate how it will go down. I'm not saying it won't go down, but the "how" really isn't all that objective.

Last night I said I wanted to see a gap above $113.25 in the SPY and a move above $123 in GLD. Both, in my analysis would suck in the longs and eventually pull the markets lower in GLD and the broad averages. That's all well and good and we saw both happen and after the SPY broke $113.25 twice intraday, we saw a pretty nasty fall on volume, the anticipated part was saying "A gap above", it gapped down and ran up above, but it doesn't matter how it happens, as long as it happens so that's the anticipation I'm talking about.

So above the $113 SPY level we saw quite a few green spikes, that's generally retail as smart money doesn't want to drive prices against their position, they are sneaky about that stuff and that's why subtle changes in volume can mean a lot more then spikes.

So I think we sucked in longs in both trades, enough though? Price action this afternoon would suggest it was enough, but who knows? We can only see what they're up to, we don't know how much and when so again, anticipation is probably best left to the pundits unless it's objective.

Here's another good example, the VIX accumulation. Initially (being I'm not an options trader and certainly not a VIX trader) I assumed they'd expire with quad witching Friday which made sense to me for a decline, it gave time for the SPY breakout we saw intraday today and enough time to see that $45 open interest hit. When I discovered Tuesday was the last day to trade before the VIX options settle on Wednesday, I was so focused on the accumulation in the VIX, I didn't bother to think it could be the next month's contract. So today I looked at the last time we saw accumulation in the VIX that lead to the biggest sell-off we've seen in well over a year and discovered something, the contract expired a good 2+ weeks before the decline so they were obviously working in the next month's contract. That's an example of being so focused on one thing that you have tunnel vision to the other possibilities. So I've learned some lessons today and I have some personal work to do to overcome that kind of behavior.

However, today was still a good day for us. We have those longs in the trade now, they didn't like it when the SPY broke $113 and this chart proves it.

Look how long a rally takes compared to a decline....why? This is the Judo concept. Those longs didn't like seeing what they saw at 3:30 on and they helped add to market supply which lowers the ask.

As for 3C...
60 minute.


15 minute

 5 minute

Note in all 3 charts (you have to look close on the 60 minute), the second move above $113 today saw a distinct negative divergence from the first.

So these tops can play out a number of ways, we could see a gap up like I had been looking for that leads to the big sell-off or we could just move down from here. I'm not going to speculate as to how it's going to go down except to say I didn't see any 1 minute positive divergences at the EOD. So I don't think a gap up is a high probability.

As I said today, I think you can start getting your toes wet, you don't have to short everything at once. There's plenty of downside room and the volatility is still very high so I'd go easy into them. Depending on tomorrow's action I'll start adding more shorts with stops.

Interestingly, I understand that AAPL accounts for 19% of the weighting of the NASDAQ 100, you won't see it in price, but in 3C there was a definite change in character, so it may be that their days of picking a few weighted stocks to advance the averages may be coming to an end.

There it is...

One thing that's very different about WOWS vs. your normal technical analysis site is that they are following price for their signals, and we know that price is not dependable. They are waiting for the market to show them, we are watching smart money that works well in front of the market. So for this reason, you can't trade the same. You need wider stops until we've reached our destination, you need excellent risk management and typically you want to do what smart money does, you want to ease into positions, albeit for different reasons.

We are looking inside of the market, at intention and that intention is generally misleading to those who follow price. This is a totally different analysis and requires you to think differently about how you construct your portfolio. One thing I can say is, you don't have to get in at the top and sell at the bottom, you have time and plenty of room to make money. Patience is key.

So keep AAPL specifically on your radar, GLD too. Quad witching this week, considering this month's bullishness could very well be a huge pay day for Wall Street-that is if they take the market down before Friday, my feeling based on what we have and are seeing is that yes, they will.

We have a bunch of reports out tomorrow and Thursday I think we're in for a real treat when they have to give the real number revisions to the 9 state initial/continuing claims guesstimate.

There'slots of stuff this week that has the potential for a lot of promise and today was an excellent start to the second and final component of the "malicious bounce".

Sleep tight, I'm going to.

That's 2!

Last night I told you I wanted to see a gap up today that penetrates the SPY $113.25 level and showed you an example chart of what it would look like. As I often say, in the words or Mark Twain, history doesn't repeat but it rhythms and despite how it happened, we got the penetration of $113.2 on the upside, $113.29 to be exact.

The idea here goes all the way back to the malicious bounce seen setting up August 25th 6 or 7 days before the bounce started. Back then I told you we have the malicious bounce and the oversold bounce. To many this looked like an oversold bounce, but the institutional accumulation showed us it was most likely a malicious bounce there for a reason. First to squeeze the shorts which we saw on a low volume rally-short covering. Then we needed the longs to jump in. Being the longs have been fixated on this H&S bottom that is all wrong with the volume situation, the breakout today of that bottom, not once but twice, intraday sucked the longs in. Who do you think was doing the selling late in the afternoon when we broke below $113-ish? It's that momentum that I believe this entire episode was intended to create.

I have a 5 pm meeting, but I'll write more later. Today wasn't or didn't occur how I expected, but it was definitely a good start for us in the right direction.

If anyone has the time to look at the April VIX contracts and the May and see when the highest call open interest was, it may be enlightening. Furthermore we need to take  look at October's.

I should be back in a few hours. Oh, and for all of you who made $$$ on the update in the oil trade today, excellent job, again it wasn't an easy trade to enter, but you overcame emotions, you went with objectivity and from what I've heard so far, it sounds like several of you have paid for several years of WOWS today.

GLD

See last night's post, it's selling off pretty hard on 3 major leading negative divergences

If you haven't already

You may want to get your toes wet in the shorts I listed-not big, but your toes wet, we need more confirmation like a downside gap Wednesday

AAPL

AAPL has 19% weighting apparently on the NASDAQ 100- that's why they've kept AAPL up, look at it intraday now. volume is big on a near waterfall sell-off.

3C has shown consistent long term distribution in AAPL

A FAILED TEST?

It looks like a lot of retail jumped in above $113, we saw 3 of the biggest green spikes of the day, then a huge red one. We now have a break from the ascending wedge that brought us up to the $113 level, downside volume is increasing and we are seeing large declining candles. We have 15 minutes, How Low Does She Go?

The VIX positive divergence IS NOT a failed signal, looking back at the April expiration(I have to see where the open interest was big), but I suffered from tunnel vision, initially thinking the VIX contract expired on quadruple witching this Friday, when I found out it settles Wednesday and closes trading today, I thought, "ok we have to move the decline up", I did not think about the forward looking month of October. Just like the April contract expired under accumulation before the decline, it looks like we have the same situation here. The apparent institutional accumulation must be on the October contract. A few weeks after the April expiration we got the huge decline, so it may be that they simply pinned the option chain and will go forward with the drop soon. The price action right now shows a failed attempt to break out of the inverse H&S bottom as suspected. Now you are seeing the start of the Judo concept, right now.

VIX Accumulation...

Interestingly, while I haven't checked the open interest of the option, the last time we had a positive divergence in the VIX, the option expired Tuesday April 20th. The market didn't start it's decline for another few weeks or so. I'm not sure what to make of that, but it definitely doesn't close the door on a decline because of the expiration today. I'll post more on this later.

Divergences

We are starting to see negative divergences here at the retest, including the TICK indicator. There's also a bullish continuation pattern, if experience leads us, then we should see a failure of that pattern, but perhaps a quick pop on the upside first, that's been the M.O.

Retest

Well it looks like they'll retest $113-ish area where the neckline is, there may be a lot of orders stacked up there that they are gunning for. It "could" precipitate a fall if the failure is spectacular and volume rises, or it could be back to the slow drift lower. Or....?

We'll just have to continue watching. 3C is in a negative divergence on the retest, but it is relative, not leading unless you look at the 5 min, that is leading. The other averages look a bit better then the SPY, but the SPY is the one everyone is watching on the $113 level.

I'm Quiet Right Now

Because as of now, price action is what needs to be watched. At a certain level of decline, which I'm not sure where it will be, the Judo Concept will kick in and we'll see heavy volume near vertical drops with small corrections between each leg. Given the VIX data, we'd need a pretty big water fall crash soon to see the VIX's volatility rise to the levels 3C was showing, but who knows. If the slow march down continues, at some point the longs that entered above $113 will realize that the breakout was false and will begin selling. We are already seeing heavier volume, this I believe to be retail money as institutional moves are quiet.

Where in a bear flag right now, it will be interesting to see if the market maker lets it continue as technical analysis would suspect or if there's a false move. If they let it continue as traditional TA has taught, then I'd say that they are openly influencing the market and encouraging sell side pressure.

IWM LEADING INDICATOR

Yesterday tech-which the IWM is packed with and more specifically the IWM outperformed the market pretty dramatically.

The IWM has been on dips the worst performer and on rally's the best performer, the reason is all because of short squeezes and long bull traps. However it may be telling us something, it may be a leading indicator of index action as it was the first to make that lower low I mentioned earlier, Keep an eye on the Russell 2000

TEST and ANSWER

Either 3C's movement isn't complete or the market maker is setting up a test of resistance (was support an hour ago). This would be for the market makers gain to trigger more orders.
The longer 5 minute chart I think shows the answer to any potential test.

USO update

USO's price action intraday is pretty ugly, it looks to have filled the gap, which lessens the chance for a break away upside move. Volume is getting ugly, 3C is ugly, and it looks to be a false upside breakout of a bearish ascending wedge. If I was looking for shorts in oil, I'd probably start getting my toes wet now.

Retest

3C isn't looking good. As I mentioned , there should be a retest of the neckline. The volume on the break shows us what we want to see, at least the start of it. Lets see if this is the real deal.

Appropriate

Here's your afternoon Broadcast from WOWS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4yIxIhO23c

Appropriate song title too. As I said last night, $113.25 would be the area or higher I'd like to see to fulfill the false breakout, which was to lead longs into the market and shut the door in their faces.

Negative divergence on 1 minute 3C-this is the area we see market maker activity, may be shifting inventory/naked shorting.

Remember, last night-$113.25-that was a somewhat arbitrary pick, but $113.29 is our high. The breakout above the neckline seems to have done what I hoped and drew in longs. The volume above $113 thus far has not been solid at all, there's a lot of red there.

We'll have to wait and see of we get a sustained break/with a failed retest of $113. That can set up a very fast downside move-kind of the opposite of a short squeeze, a long squeeze.

GLD

From Friday Sept 10th

Here it is, I wanted to see one more move up to set up this ascending wedge, specifically as you can see above, I wanted a move above $123, we have it.

Keep an eye on GLD for a break, it will then probably be a very nice short and that goes for most of the mining industry.

$113

At 11:14 we saw a big volume spike as limit orders were triggered by the bulls, maybe a few shorts left to cover. Yesterday I said I'd like to see price around $113.25, we saw $113.14, close enough? We'll have to wait and see. Once we make a lower low (under $112.90)  we should find out.

Again, $113 is where the orders were-another whole number. Retail traders just make it far too easy for Wall Street

Negative Divergence

We now have a negative divergence-should see a leg down

Morning Update 2

There's a small positive divergence into the bear flag, you can imagine why it's there.

Morning Update

I still like TZA a lot

As for the market, futures were flat on the report this a.m., that was an improvement, still they opened lower. The bounce we have seen since the market open showed no divergences, so I am not too worried about it and do not think it will last as of what I see so far.

After last night's post, I'm just going to leave it at that for now