my general market commentary posts have been light because nothing’s really changed lately: this market continues to favor trading the most attractive individual stock set-ups, long or short, vs. trying to game the broad indexes. although the broad market has been grinding higher lately (emphasis on the word “grinding”), the SPX/SPY is still lower than where it was 2 weeks ago and about exactly were it was about 2 months ago, and even a year and two months ago for that matter. this is a traders market, not a buy & hold market and has been for over a year now. continue to keep things light, take profits when you get them, and don’t get too complacent with your stops. however, i will say that i usually prefer to allow a little more wiggle-room on my stops when the market is in these indecisive, extra choppy modes like we’ve been in for weeks now. of course, the decision to widen my stops is made on a stock by stock basis and widening stops to avoid having them run in a choppy market can cut both ways.
this updated 60 minute SPY chart shows that we are still within the resistance zone and although i did not note it on the chart, i can see that most oscillators and indicators are lagging behind on this recent move higher and will most likely put in negative divergences (on the 60 min frame) if the market manages to peek above the july 3rd highs, which is the top of my resistance zone. therefore, i will most likely extend this resistance zone to that upper-most horizontal line, allowing for a possible pop to new (near-term) highs in order to run the stops on the shorts & suck in some longs before reversing to the downside.