Strange behavior occurs at options expiration. I don't trade the market per se, don't trade index vehicles, I trade stocks, and most have been from the long side in the last 8 months, and I don't see anything to cause me to reverse that strategy now.
A very good point regarding options expiration. Someone hit the sell "button" with 35 minutes left in the session, and it could very well have been tied to the February Expiration. Cheers!
nas has been bouncing between 25 and 50 sma, today it opened above 25 and closed just a bit above 50. I'm still mid-term bullish, today was an over-reaction; as you pointed out it may be attributed to options expiration. I will be going long tomorrow, would have placed a short position if today had larger volume, ie. at least above 2bil on the nas.
Tomorrow the eco# will probably influence the market mainly. The PPI and CPI are due before the bell.
The median estimate for the CPI for January is: +0.3% The median estimate for the Core CPI is: +0.1% Fed President Poole speaks on the Economy at 7:30AM CST as well. Chairman Greenspan to speak at 11:45AM CST at a Chamber of Commerce meeting . . . and Fed Governor Bernanke will speak on Inflation at that same time as well. The PPI is not due out till Monday, Feb. 23rd. Median estimate is for +0.4%
I don't like the look of the transports they confirmed all the previous moves to the 50 Day MA in previous times but this time they broke through the 50 day MA. I feel the same is coming for the Dow & SP. Looks like the NAS will be the first. If we have a down day tomorrow can we expect a big sell off on Monday? I imagine that there might be tons of Stops just below the 50 day.
The smart money has been short for a little while now. Mutal Funds have put their clients money to work, that is what the smart money faded towards the end. It will be a little while before we see a trend reversal IMHO, right now you will have chop and moves faded, (like the semis), low volume. This could last for a while at least into next quarter or two. being short is not easy, but the risk/reward smiles upon it.