Sunday Night Futures

Options activity tonight is very muted, The ES futures closed Friday at 4 p.m. at $1653, they are $1652.50 right now!!! I've waited around, checked an hour later and just not much very interesting.

I still think a bounce is a strong possibility, but just as the last few weeks I think long positions are increasingly unpredictably dangerous, they really have to have a strong reason in my view, on the other side of the coin, the bearish evidence is simply overwhelming, to the point it's scary even though most of us are prepared.

Here are some of the best signals in Index futures arguing for a bounce, but they are pretty much limited to these fairly weak timeframes, but it's a lot more than we have seen recently from Index futures.

 ES (SPX futures) 5 min and as positive as it has been in a while, but it ends here.

 NQ (NASDAQ futures) has a stronger positive at 15 mins, but it ends there as well.

TF (Russell 2000 futures) 5 min has a positive divergence, this in itself is a change of character because its something index futures have been lacking all last week and that is any kind of  enthusiasm whatsoever.

Crude is looking toppy it has a lot of damage, but there are several timeframes that need to fall in line, this is Brent 5 min which should effect tomorrow.

Currencies aren't giving anything away tonight, very dull there with signals as well.

The most interesting thing may be VIX related, first VIX futures...

 This is VIX 60 min. futures, VERY BIG picture, the market moved opposite the VIX generally speaking, but in the near term...

 The 5 min chart of VIX futures is in line which is fine, but it's not leading.

Add this in...

The Spot VIX futures gave a sell signal closing outside the Bollinger Bands and then back inside them.

This would suggest the VIX sees some near term downside and the market runs opposite the VIX.

Unless something dramatic changes, I don't see any real strong set up for early a.m. trade, although the 5/16 min positive index charts suggest later in the day or early in the week they'll see some upside.

We still have a split where short term SPY and DOW charts look ready for early positive activity, but the IWM and Q's haven't quite made it there yet.

I don't mind be long or short, but the most difficult and the most rewarding is often JUST BEING PATIENT. You'd be surprised how fast signals pop up and change everything.

That said, I don't think there's any logic in looking for great longs unless they pop up, core positions on the short side are what this potential bounce is all about, you saw the core shorts up 11% last week on a 2+% SPX loss, those are what this is really about, finding and adding to them.

I'll post more if I see anything interesting pop up.