Wednesday, January 21, 2009

TODAY'S ACTION



Yes, We Can...drop -332 points! heh heh...congrats to our new President. I would have gone to the Mall, which is only minutes away, but decided not to because 1) I had a good amount of money at work since Friday, 2) it's 20 degrees in DC these days, 3) I had to coach my students, who also made profits on a shitstorm day. Besides, why not watch the Inaguration on your favorite financial network in your heated office? Exactly.


What's great about charts is that sometimes you know immediately when you are right or wrong and if you should add or reduce positions. Today was one of those days. I'm not going to bs: I was slightly questioning my decision to hold my short positions on Friday. That was normal given the power rally that occurred end of day. The rewards for those who held shorts over the long weekend were immediately realized and it was a major day to make a killing. I am personally up a ridiculously large amount and I regularly use the same charts I post here for intraday guidance.

What do I mean by guidance? The first things you should note are the key support/resistance levels, any moving averages or fibs (if any), and price/volume action. When you are trading the next day, you should be keen enough to discover that these "magical" lines and stuff actually do work, despite that fact that I just made TA sound like Tasseography. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, it's easy to forget the key technical levels because emotions are running so high. This is why I encourage people to actually write this stuff out. It only takes a few seconds and it could save you thousands of dollars.

Today was an important day. I needed the market to close in the red to support my short bias. I didn't need a -5% down day, but I'm not complaining. We took out the key levels I mentioned yesterday, especially 820 SPX. The Dow broke and closed below the 8,000 level. This level is not necesarily a major technical level, but it's more of a psychological level (remember when we broke 10,000? Pure chaos). The COMP and R2K both failed the 50-day MA and all 4 indices are in comfirmed downtrends. There is no reason to be an a-hole dip buyer here.

For weeks now, I've told you guys to observe the financials, the weakest sector in the S&P. They made a new low today and they won't hesitate to bring the indices back down to test their own respective lows. The only time where someone should be long in this situation is if the financials stem the decline with capitulation and rally on a highly reliable reversal on massive volume. Until then, the bleeding will continue as the fear continues to permeate the markets and people sell stocks like it's going out of style.

Right now, I'm going to ride this downtrend until the wheels fall off regardless of whatever small bounces occur during this descent. I am up +64% YTD thanks to 1) going long spikers, 2) going short financials, and 3) my tea leaf readings.

In other news, this idiot finally quit.


SPX 3-day

SPX 5-day

SPX 10-day

SPX 50-day

SPX 4-month

XLF
Don't forget to try the Free Trend Analysis. It's FREE, so give it a shot!

5 comments:

Bruce said...

u taking new investors?

Bob said...

Thanks John,
Good stuff. You have been right on.

Anonymous said...

Hi John,
I am learning TA. Was that a key reversal day and also a pipe bottom? Or is the downtrend still valid?

Lurker said...

Your site has been one of my daily stop for a while now, Your daily commentary is great. I am really enjoy reading it.

will you consider today is a small bounce? :P

John C. Lee said...

its 50/50 right now. I'm hedged, waiting for either a confirmation pullback or a continuation.

anon - you're a retardo.