No Advantages to Forcing a Trade

With the S&P now breaking the lower support line on the bearish rising wedge pattern, the path of least resistance is now down. As we mentioned yesterday, however, there are too many bears out there to get much downside momentum started. We saw this play out yesterday as dip buyers stepped in, probably in response to ultra bearish sentiment, and kept a bottom under the market. The QQQQ tried to rally yesterday, but sold off in the late day, indicating that sellers are in charge, even though sentiment is giving some support. Drilling down to our scans, though, we find a very neutral near term picture. Reading the indices, we need to keep a bearish bias until we have a better reason not to. At the same time, we struggled to find anything that constituted anything close to a reliable trade set up on either the long or short side. When stocks are not setting up, it is always best to go to the sidelines and wait for better developments. There is no better way to lose money in the market than by forcing a trade. Days like today are best traded only by day traders. Days like today are usually short-lived and those who are patient and keep some cash on the sidelines waiting to act are quickly rewarded as better set ups emerge in their wake.