Sandbagged

I was afraid of that. That little slip-up by the White House yesterday appears to have done its job as futures are on the rise after a much better than expected jobs report. Is this a sell on the news event? I don't know. I will give the market a few minutes to see what it's going to do, but I will only hold my index short positions if the indexes hold below the rally highs. I will not be reversing and going long the indexes. I will wait for another opportunity.

It has been a while since I have been so wrong footed with an index position. So many factors have pointed to a top that has simply not materialized even though the pattern, price levels, and timing have supported that point of view. In general, I am a trend follower, and it usually pays to wait until the trend has developed, but sometimes one can build a case for taking a position at a top or bottom. See my post on how I traded JPM, Oct 31. But also, take a look at my post of Oct 28 entitled "Is there any doubt?" where I mention how oversold the market was based on the McClellan Oscillator. That little piece of information has proved to be very accurate. If this move fails, I will have not any qualms about going short again.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, this could turn out to be an acceleration point, and that may be the case now, but it will take a breakout and pullback to prove it. There will be a pullback at some point. We will evaluate the situation when it happens.