Uncle Russ Makes New Ground While Uncle Dow Charges Alone

Well folks, another week gone and we are skipping past the middle of the month with Mr Bull skipping through the daisy filled meadows with not a care in the world.

Every so often a trader has to sit down and have a serious talk with himself about the market, and the awkward part is that both parties already know exactly what the other is going to say.

I had a long talk with myself over the weekend and while the bull moves simply can’t be denied it’s hard to ignore the bear argument, and the lack of any sort of corrective move.

Short sharp moves approaching 10% in 10 to 15 days are common, around once per year on average, but they can skip their seasonal cycles. The last time I sounded like a crazy bear was from around Oct/Sept 2019.

Market Snapshot

Uncle Russ out front, Uncle Dow out back, and a bit of fear creeping in.

Uncle Dow continues to lead the bear charge unaccompanied. No other index has agreed to join him, and none has offered a reason.

The snap view sees Uncle Russ making new ground in the pre market futures. SnP is a stone’s throw away. NazQuack is making a push to a new high but not an all time high, yet. And sleepy Uncle Dow is continuing to lead the bear charge all on its own still.

VIX has popped higher with relatively little to no overnight SnP movement, so we could infer there is a little fear creeping into the market again.

• ES 7,816.75, +0.18%. A stone’s throw off the NATHs.

• YM 53,754, -0.05%. Still the odd one out.

• NQ 30,303.50. New high, not an all time high.

• RTY 3,074.7, +0.07%. Out in front, making new ground.

• VIX 14.95, +4.84%. The pop, on nothing much at all.

• GC 4,455.5, +0.53%. Grinding back up.

• CL 82.66, +0.32%. Quiet.

• BTC/USD 63,396.39. Selling off, see below.

SPX – Don’t get married to horizontal lines. The channel is rising now.

On the SPX swing chart it can be seen that the bull setups are still in effect, and with the Bollinger Bands once again compressing, prices are suggesting moving back into a consolidation.

If we adjust the compression area from horizontal last week to angled, or a rising channel now, the boundary levels can once again be seen.

This for me highlights that it’s important not to get married to those horizontal lines as being set in stone, and trying to name a pattern can get you into a world of trouble, as price patterns often evolve and mutate in real time, so it’s only afterwards that we can look back and say this was xyz pattern.

And why I bang on about my 6 money making patterns, which really are a clever way of identifying what phase of movement the market is currently doing.

Crypto – Target lifted to 0.0305, and BTC is doing the heavy lifting.

Crypto land, my ETH/BTC is moving nicely from the range lows towards the range highs. As mentioned last week, because of the rising channel I’ve adjusted my target up to reflect the rising range highs, so 0.0305 is the new target.

The main driver here seems to be BTC selling off with ETH doing little to less directional movement, as such this cross rate is gaining ground as per the pattern.

Premium Poppers – Standard breakouts, flagged by the software, bag full collected.

Last Friday’s Premium Poppers once again produced some good results for the community. Standard breakout events highlighted by the software, and the community scooped a bag full.

• Don E. Closed RUT Bull BO for 50%

• Bill B. Good Day 4 Wins, 2 SPX Bears, 1 RUT Bull, and 1 MSFT Bull. Did OK for the week! 13W, 4L

• Richard H. “Flat for me today. Took the bull RUT ATM SS3060 to transform to a butterfly but it didn’t quite make it to $55c for me, so I closed at BE on the retracement, rather than wait for a possible loss as it is such a slow day range. I didn’t take the SPX as it created the bear BO right at the 2 day VWAP, then I felt I had missed it (forgot the tiny scale). So lesson to self, again, press the damn buttons at the right time.”

• Don E. Closed SPX Bear for 50%

• Chris T. “SPX winner. I did front run this a touch but it worked and then something a bit different. Took the 3rd BO on SPY instead.”

• James D. “Took the SPX bear LP and set it to close at 60%, nice to finish a challenging week on a win! I ignored the RUT bull LP thankfully.”

Fun Fact

On that once a year figure, the averages back you up and then immediately undermine themselves.

The S&P 500 has averaged roughly 1.1 corrections per year since 1928.

But they arrive in clumps rather than on schedule: 2020 delivered 5 corrections of 10% or more, and 2022 delivered 4.

Meanwhile the 2009 to 2020 bull market had 5 separate years with no 10% decline at all, and finished every one of them higher.

So the average is real and almost never what any individual year does.

Trade well,

T2 Markets

p.s. Want full access to the SPX Income System (includes 7+ mechanical income strategies)? Join our team now!