Thursday, March 31, 2011

Last Day of the Quarter

Today being the last day of the quarter is important for funds to keep their returns high for Q2 prospectuses, however, the market looks exhausted and the highest return is the Russell 2k @ .25% and selling off as I write. The NASDAQ 100 is at .07% also selling now, the Dow -.11% and selling off on increased volume, and finally the SP-500 -.09% also selling off on some volume.

The negative divergences are there. As I stated 3 days ago now in my first post of the day, it would be possible/probable (despite the fact we already had negative divergences up to the 15 min.) that the market would do its best to keep the returns high into the end of the month (today) and today it's a real struggle.

The action on Monday at 3 p.m. through the close was very negative and on high volume. It's important to remember that 4 p.m on Monday was the last day funds could buy/sell assets which would either show up or disappear from Q2 prospectuses. The fact that the selling was so overwhelming into the close when locals traditionally trade was a bit strange and I wonder if short positions weren't being taken as well as de-leveraging of long positions. Despite this bounce, we are still in an intermediate downtrend and that shouldn't be forgotten.

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