Downtrend Still In Force

The stock market certainly seems to want to go up. Yet, it hasn't. The Qs remain below the 25dema. The VLE remains below its 25dema, and 3 of the 5 Tides indexes remain below their 25demas. The Qs have yet to close above the prior week's high. While a close above last week's high of 43.60 might be enough to reverse the trend, the real resistance is the August 16, 2007 low of 44.39. The Qs will need to close above that level to prove that a strong countertrend rally (counter to the primary monthly downtrend) is underway. Even though it looks like such a move is imminent, do not jump the gun. Let the market prove itself.

Trend followers argue that we can never know when the trend is going to end, so we need to wait for a complete reversal to exit a position. It is not clear to me that this will yield the best results in the stock market. It may work for commodities, but stocks tend to advance in bursts with substantial corrections. I am looking at alternative exit strategies that may yield better results.

I will also be presenting my next intermediate term trading strategy next weekend. Until then, be patient. This market has yet to prove it is going up.