TRIN reading was unusually high this morning. some say this could have been the indicator of your so called earthquake.
I like to know this as well, they say august is one of the slowest month, be extra careful and decisive! ( but of course, no excuse for not making as much money as you can!)
Yes, difficult day no doubt. You had to short at resistance and buy at support to scrape anything out.
Looking at Thursday (Aug 10) there were 15 trading points buying/selling end to end (YM). If you were micro-trading the whole day you would have made more interventions. Of those 15 there were 3 'reinforcement' signals .. that is where according to your particular methodology you get a strong re-entry signal for an immediate direction you are already in and you add to your position. However the greater importance for the routine player is the whole day approach and deploying an accurate methodology.
from the daily view, SPY volume contracting with rise, expanding with drops since may. I'd go short from here. On intraday, draw a 120 period linear regression, 3 std dev width channel on the 15min bar view. Go short when the price double tops at the top channel line. 8/4 and 8/9 are example days which will give you 20pts a pop.
heads long, tails short. take profit at 20 pts if at loss, double down every 5pnts till rich or broke.
August 10 was a typical choppy retracement to about 50% of previous drop. The 15 min macd would have kept you long using a trend line.