I've always perceived myself as a fuckhead magnet. I could give numerous examples, but I'll cite just one. Back in 1999, I was waxing my car, in a park, under a shady tree. Some clown with an Indiana Jones hat and wire rim glasses walked up to me, uninvited, and asked "whatcha doin'?" I bit my lip to remain nice and responded "I'm waxing my car" to which he replied "looks like alotta work", to which I responded, "yeah, it is". Then he walked away. Arthur, do YOU see any parallels???? Incidently, the number of NYSE new 52 week lows hasn't increased. On the 29th, the grand total was (7). Why, you can count them on your fingers. Hmmm, might be a clue there.
Did I hurt your feewin's? Gosh, if so, I'm sorry. I just have this aversion to one-liner's. Reminds me of a heckler in a comedy club. Direction? This thread is about volatility (or the lack of it as the as the case may be). And, this concept would generally precede price movement. In fact, I'd venture to say volatility is MORE predictable than price. Do we have "direction" (yet)? You have a trendline break. It could just as easily re-test as continue. Monday's a new month, which automatically brings in new cash. Whether cash is deployed can't be determined. To value-oriented bargain hunting institutions, yeah. Movement (ie DIRECTION) can be valid or a headfake. That's where other tools, as well as paitience come into play. Valid or headfake can be translated to penetration or re-test. Predictions? Dime a dozen. I can make predictions too. In fact, I''ll........eh.......predict the indices will be slightly higher on Friday , February 5th than at present stemming from an over-sold state. You make sure and come back on Friday and twist the knife a little IF appropriate. Might make you feel better. That said, I'm more concerned about my pocketbook being hurt than my feewin's. Your quoted sentence suggests you're MORE interested in being "right" than profitable. I don't know about you, but I'm here for the money, sonny. Money is made from actions/inactions that lead to the future rather than reading yesterday's newspaper. Stated another way, news that EVERYONE knows really isn't worth knowing. Typically, please note I wrote typically, stocks bottom in unisom and top one by one. The recent move has been pretty much across the board. Additionally, it was fairly sharp. Not crash-like but sharp. Now, intra-day, SHARP moves are by design, courtesy of the specialist (or market maker) to maneuver with minimal PUBLIC participtation. We're not talking intra-day, but rather, about 2 weeks. But.............across the board. That's the operative observation "across the board". And in the public eye rather than one by one. In my own pithy little opinion, it's a shakeout to acquire inventory (for purpose of re-sale). And, as previously cited, earnings season makes for great alibis to snag paper. Regardless, volume has been anemic. Nothing to be alarmed about. I always try to stay on the side of the ax. A posture not easily discerned. Although not ideal. I'm willing to sacrifice a pawn to gain a rook. How 'bout we get BACK to volatility? We could discuss the virtures of average true range versus VIX or Bollinger bandwidth or whatever measure of volatilty you devise.
Considering the Spider ETF as a proxy for the S&P 500, as of March 18th, the 20 day average true range (ATR) is the lowest, or shall we say the tightest since May 23, 2007. Nearly a third of a decade. Expect a forthcoming move kiddies. Direction? Remains to be seen, but given an over-bought market from a variety of advance/decline indicators and 52 week high/low oscillators, as well as prices extended from basic moving averages, draw your own conclusion. Options expire and in-the-money calls assigned to new owners assuming fresh risk. Might need a catalyst. Attack on Iran would be one (giving us THREE fronts). Another bail out, a prominent BK, or a state bellying up would also serve a catalytic (not to be confused with platinum) purpose. Ahh, let's just call it the Ides of March.
thank you for sharing this with us. here is an idea. comparing VIX: may-07 ~13, mar-10 ~17. so, we have higher vix now and similar ATR. it seems that we are actually tighter now if we normalize by VIX (larger move pending?). does normalization by VIX makes sense to you? if you look at your data and normalize by VIX previous data points, do you see any useful patterns?