FIRST Utilities outperforming, now VIX

By the way, if anyone took the XLU "fade trade" from earlier today, Fade Trade: XLU Utilities I'd be interested to know how you are doing as XLU is fading intraday as anticipated.

XLU (Utilities) have long been a safe haven trade for long-only funds.

Financials are also underperforming, I looked at XLF and considered a similar Call trade like the quick, speculative IWM entered Friday, however, although I'm getting small positives that suggest a pop that could be played with call options, I'm not getting any confirmation in FAZ or FAS, both are still favoring Financials heading lower even though XLF is showing some "SMALL" positive divergences on today's weakness in the sector.

As for the VIX, take a look and consider VIX is a flight to protection trade so it seems there's a flight to buy protection from a downside move. I do think there's a VIX trade available, I don't think it's here yet, I'd say about the same time I exit IWM calls from Friday, I'll be looking closely at VIX possibilities.

Short term Leading Indicators still suggest a bounce, take HYG vs SPX,

HYG is in red, as I showed late last week, internally it's falling apart, but for the short term, it's holding enough to allow a bounce like the one I had in mind late last week for early this week, pre-F_O_M_C and if SPX (green) were to revert to HYG (red), that would be a reasonable expectation for a bounce.

A quick look at HYG deterioration, I posted more charts last week.

In any case, this is about VIX...

 This is VIX (blue) vs SPX over the last week or so, you may not see the outperformance, but if I invert SPX prices to show the natural inverse correlation between the two...

You see VIX outperforming SPX today by a comfortable margin.

I suspect if we get our bounce VIX will follow its natural correlation, but I also think that will be the area where a VIX / VXX trade may be a reality.

Lots of little chinks in the armor today.