Did Today's Rally Mark A Bottom?

The answer to that question - I don't know, but a couple of things are against it. One, almost all of the biggest rallies in the Dow have occurred during bear market declines. Two, the TC2000 T2101 Absolute Breadth index is 48.59 well below the 55 level that has been hit at every significant bottom in the last few years. Three, the Elliot Wave count for the Qs looks like it needs at least one or two more declines to complete a 5 wave move.

Also, in order to signal a beginning to a new rally, the Qs would need to move above last weeks high of 42.84, and above 47.08 to signal a monthly trend reversal. There is a lot of work to do to get to those levels.

The Dow needs to advance another 544 points to clear last weeks high and 940 points to move above the September high. Again, this probably isn't going to occur in one movement.

Lastly, the Dow Jones Transportation index closed below the July low yesterday which now brings the Industrials and the Trannies back into sync to the downside, which is an important component of Dow Theory.

Last week, I said that if the Qs broke below the September 18 low that I would go with them and I did. I exited my long positions and went short as soon as the previous low was broken yesterday. Today's rally was painful, but the discipline is to stay with the trend and the trend is still down.

On a side note, I got whipsawed out of a short in GOOG today because of wild price swings that occurred in the last three minutes. I am hoping that they will bust my stop loss exit trade and reinstate the position. It is impossible to plan for such "technical" exchange breakdowns , but traders need to remember that such things can and do happen, which is another reason not to take positions that are more than 20% of your account. You don't want to be wiped out on a fluke. As it stands I did not lose more than my predetermined risk on the trade, but still I am frustrated to say the least.