2010 was a down market early in the year; I was thinking the same for 2011 around a month ago but I've changed my mind. There is simply too much good US news lately, and here in Canada the banks raising dividends first quarter may lift the whole market. The other side of things are metal stocks, which historically find many ways to disappoint come earnings time especially when valuations suggest high expectations. I think you can go long or short as long as you carefully look at valuations and pick the right sectors. The majority of my trading is Canadian so most of my analysis has a Canadian flavour.
A little research relating to IWM and RUT. Last five days of puts, calls, and RVX: Code: RVX IWM calls IWM puts P/C ratio Sum of RVX and P/C 23.15 15,690 33,018 2.104397706 25.25 23.42 16,640 44,489 2.673617788 26.09 24.33 20,113 49,065 2.439467011 26.77 24.2 20,764 62,338 3.002215373 27.20 25.06 17,182 98,479 5.73152136 30.79 RVX is the volatility index for the RUT. As you can see, as of today RVX is high relative to where its been and the put/call ratio going into today on IWM was high. I'd say the bearish fuel was mostly used up today. The above, to me, means sentiment has swung over to bearish, although not wildly so. So I'm going back to my default bullish mode, as the complacency is gone and the move that started at the end of August is still in play. Situation is different with the blue chips. They barely moved overall today, so there may be downside left over in that sandbox. *edited for bad column headings
yet another excellent point from trefoil! i am very disappointed in this market. it can't even drop 2% without everybody soiling their pants. we still could follow Jan 2010 scenario: flat/up into earnings with the drop to follow. any unexpected European financial crises to surprise us? AA reports next Monday.
the market is jittery. i don't trust SPY (+0.03%) to hold today. things just don't smell right for the bulls right now
Higher naturally into the Spring, but we need a little pause at some point soon, and a mild pullback. I suppose Friday would be a good time to get a little selling under way -- Oh, pardon me, I meant to say "profit taking."
i misread the tea leaves! now it is apparent that the secret plan for the day was to lure in and squeeze the intraday shorts. the dump will happen overnight or tomorrow. so it has been foretold... GL to all!
Excuse me, but do you not follow news at all ??? There was a huge upside surprise on US jobs this morning. This is the last piece of the economic puzzle, jobs are always the most lagging aspect of a recovery. 80k gain expected and actuals were 300k gain. And then the ISM number was above expectations at 10 am. No surprise though on that; we've had two months of spectacular economic numbers, better numbers then the US has seen for several years actually. So I am utterly amazed that you would post you expected the markets to drop today. Why on earth would they ? Earnings season is coming and unless there are huge disappointments ( which seems unlikely given the economic indicators from companies themselves ), the market has at least 10-15% more upside by April. It seems to me that many people on ET continue to parade out the same old tired story regardless of circumstances or news. And then you wonder why the market does the exact opposite of what you expected ??? Please, do some research and try to understand why these markets are moving up. Real reasons not the hysteria we get far too often on this site. 1177 was an excellent buying point to participate in this bull market. Exactly when Fly Down last predicted a correction of course, but he is the known as the best damn fade on ET for a reason . ps RIM up approx. 5% today ( one of my recent recommendations ).
Would that be the "wall of worry" that most strong bull markets climb ??? Again a reminder, bull markets usually last at least 3-4 years ( check it out historically, please find me the last bull market of only 2 years ).