Decent little last minute dump into the close on both SPY & QQQ with both attempted to back-fill today’s gaps & both falling shy of doing so before the pre-closing bell dump kicked in. Nothing too big but certainly a change of character in the market from recent months where most early morning dips were bought up with the markets going on to close the day green. Possible early signs that the buyers are starting to dry up. To be continued tomorrow.

G-luck on those index shorts. I’m also short those two indices (and only those two). They’ve mounted a somewhat impressive recovery off the lows so far but all major diversified indexes still red & have yet to go green on the day (i.e. back-fill today’s gaps & then some). Last hour of trading should be telling; will the buyers step in & close the indexes positive or are the bearish technicals & today’s breakdowns in QQQ & IWM clear to enough market participants that they will use this bounce to take profits on longs or initiate/add-to short exposure? I’m going to hold off on adding any more short exposure until/unless today’s lows are taken out.

My reply to @dpatel earlier today in the trading room regarding GDX:

I still don’t have a very good read on the charts of GDX & especially GLD. I see most of the top mining stocks along with GDX having pulled back to at or very near support levels which could be the end of the correction but without being able to make a fairly clear case for a reversal in GDX & again, especially in GLD, personally I’m holding off on taking any long exposure to the miners as of now.

My reply to @ben711 on UNG (nat gas ETN) also in the trading room earlier today (in which I did close my full position on UGAZ right after those follow-up comments as /NG was trading at 2.95):

reply #1: Hard to say on UNG but I think /NG (nat gas futures) has about another 2-2.2% upside to the 3.00ish area & with UNG being a fairly popular trading proxy for nat gas, it is quite likely to see the sellers step in if/when that gap is back-filled (which essentially it has been, falling just 3 cents shy of it so far). Sometimes there’s so much money in these tracking ETFs that it’s a matter of the tail wagging the dog. (i.e.- buying & selling pressure on the ETFs cause a move in the underlying, not the other way around).

reply #2: I should add that I recently made the case for a more significant bounce & possible bottom or at least a major trend reversal in nat gas based off this chart: http://schrts.co/nv6MZh — in this post: http://rightsideofthechart.com/natural-gas-analysis-price-targets/ so it boils down to this: Do you want to take the quick buck or hold out for potentially larger gains if nat gas did bottom on Feb 22nd? Personally, I plan to book profits just shy of 3.00 on /NG (which is about now) & maybe re-enter when the next objective setup materializes.

Don’t thank me yet. :lol: Markets are only about 1-3% off their recent highs (QQQ-IWM). I’m looking for at least another 2x that amount from here. From there, assuming that we do fall another 6% or so, we’ll have to assess the charts to try and determine if that’s likely the end of a relatively shallow overbought pullback before another ramp to new highs or the start of a much deeper correction.

Still waiting patiently for the right setup in GDX (& congrats on your recent trades/calls on the miners) as well as adding the semis & financials as official short trades. On the bullish side, I still like select ag related commodities such as wheat, cocoa & I’m still long nat gas from the lows 12 days ago: http://rightsideofthechart.com/members/pkm48193/activity/22561/#acomment-22562 http://rightsideofthechart.com/natural-gas-analysis-price-targets/

Basically, still trading a long/short portfolio, as I typically do but net short by a fair margin at this point preferring to stick with stocks or commodities that have little to no correlation with the broad markets for my long positions.