Wang’s Happy Trading

Yikes!! The market still can’t seem to find any solid footing. It’s like mudslide everywhere and it’s still raining!! The broader market held up better than the techs. The techs have been going up and up for the past couple of months. It looks like the market wants to sync it up a little bit with the rest of the market. The Dow closed down 55.19 points; SPX lost 14.52 points; and Nasdaq slipped 43.81 points!

I didn’t do all that much today. I closed quite a few losing positions. Tried chasing puts, but, was not comfortable enough to stay in the volatility. I was able to scalp some trades, but, if I had the guts to stay in the puts, they would have done really nicely, especially the puts on BIDU. Other than that, I just held my cash and watched the market with awe, as to me, there’s something very unnatural, or even artificial, about this selloff! It almost “feels” forced now. I’ll wait to form my opinions until things are less volatile.

Here’s how the market looked at close:

VIX jumped over +9%! XLF (financials) managed to close in the green. Other than those, it was pretty much red ink. GLD (gold), GDX (gold miners), and XME (metals and miners) slipped “big time” today, down 4.72%, 7.2%, and 6.2%, respectively. USO (oil) and OIH (oil service) also gave up quite a bit. FXI (Chinese ADRs) shed another 6.87%.

SPX

SPX lost 14.52 points to close at 1439.18. We talked about the support at 1440 this weekend, and, we’re already there! The daily MAs are in the recently formed bearish formation. The MACD is still sliding.

Nasdaq

Nasdaq gave up 43.81 points to close at 2584.13 (under the 2625 support). The MACD difference (blue bars) is getting huge. The daily MAs are curving down into a possible bearish formation. If it doesn’t bounce up above 2625, the next support is at 2550.

Here’s a good summary of how the top tech stocks are doing in the recent slide. Ok, time for some cheerful news. This morning IBM announced its decision to buy COGN for $5 billion. IBM gained $1.19 and COGN jumped $4.17, or +7.87%! SIGM received a target boost today, and its stock jumped +4.72%. ESRX was particularly strong; it gained more than a $1 and was trading up another $0.55 in AH. Has shopping season started already? UPS was up +2.74%, as it declared a regular dividend.

Good night and HappyTrading! ™