“Failed rally” sums up today’s action nicely. Early in the day the Nasdaq’s negative advance decline line was a big warning sign for me. That combined with the fact that I hate chasing those early morning rallies made me quit for the day before I ever got started. I was also a little concerned about the effects of some bad quote data I had in the morning. Here’s a bit of an IM session I had today:
Michael (10:04:38 AM): is the S&P really down? I can’t even get an S&P quote in CyberTrader
D (10:05:05 AM): I have it as flat.
Michael (10:05:21 AM): -5.43 according to eSignal
Michael (10:05:23 AM): hmmm
Michael (10:06:10 AM): S&P has to be up, given the other indices
Michael (10:06:33 AM): I wonder what effect this bad data is having on traders & systems today
Michael (10:07:45 AM): S&P data is right now on both systems
Michael (10:07:52 AM): up 8.21Michael (10:26:12 AM): ugh… I can’t find anything to buy
D (10:28:50 AM): And my buys from last week are not doing as well as they should on a day like this.
Michael (10:29:13 AM): Nasdaq A/D line is barely positive
D (10:29:27 AM): ah
Michael (10:29:49 AM): can’t truss it
D (10:30:28 AM): nopeMichael (11:02:52 AM): ISRG
Michael (11:03:15 AM): on my short list too
D (11:03:57 AM): i am ready….
D (11:04:35 AM): this is definitely a stock that *should* be soaring today
Michael (11:04:50 AM): indeed
Michael (11:05:11 AM): Naz A/D line is negative now
D (11:05:25 AM): damnD (11:39:43 AM): Maybe the A/D won’t matter too much today…
Michael (11:51:55 AM): apparently … mkt continues to be a tripD (12:03:34 PM): Lovely – *everything* is making new highs today. Talk about conundrums…
Michael (12:03:49 PM): sell!
Michael (12:08:06 PM): Naz A/D getting worse… I don’t trust this rally at all
Michael (12:08:47 PM): and with that, I’m done for the day
D (12:20:29 PM): don’t blame yaD (2:03:23 PM): I see sellers stepping in all over the place now… I guess the A/D line WILL matter today! with earnings adding to the potential for chop, April might be a great month to generally chill out.
Michael (2:04:00 PM): just like Feb and March!
D (2:04:05 PM): lol! Yep!Michael (2:37:14 PM): Naz at LOD
D (2:58:19 PM): imagine thatD (3:39:26 PM): Ah – Nazz is negative now. Lovely.
Too bad I didn’t take that ISRG short. But I just didn’t feel like jumping into anything today with the market so mixed. The NYSE, which had a very positive A/D line early ended with its A/D line at 16/17. So it was a very weak close for the bulls with the indices closing near their lows and well off of their highs.
One interesting thing, which you’ll see in the charts below, is how out of sync the major indices are. Usually they approach oversold or overbought territory together but that’s certainly not the case now. By my (admittedly short-term) stochastic settings the Dow is very oversold, the S&P is neutral to slightly oversold and the Nasdaq is just a hair from being overbought. I think that’s just due to sector rotation but I just wonder how they’re going to get re-synced. Will the Dow ‘pull’ the Nasdaq down or vice versa?
