Rev Shark: Giving the Bulls Some Room
06/17/2010 7:29AM
Man stands for long time with mouth open before roast duck flies in. -- Chinese saying
Overseas markets are strong this morning, and that's giving us a positive start. The Spanish bond auction went well, there is a little more clarity about the Gulf spill situation after the escrow deal, retail sales in the U.K. were good due to demand for televisions for World Cup viewing and the euro continues its rally.
With the S&P 500 holding its breakout of the 200-day simple moving average, the bulls are ready for some more upside. After a wobbly close last night. is it really any surprise that we have a strong start this morning? Trapping the unsuspecting overnight crowd has been the pattern lately, and it's playing out again this morning.
There has been a lot written recently about how this market is nuts, and how there's no rhyme or reason for the way it trades. The market is always irrational to some degree, but there the theme lately has been that it has become so dysfunctional that it's untradeable. There is plenty of evidence to back up that assertion, and the high level of frustration of many market players helps to confirm it.
Unfortunately, complaining about the character of the market action isn't going to make us any money. We either have to find a way to deal with it or just stand aside and ignore it.
There is nothing wrong with sitting on the sidelines when you feel out of sync with the market. It happens to all market players from time to time. No matter how hard you try, you just can't make any progress, and you start to wonder if you just don't have the old mojo anymore. When that happens, getting away from the market for a little while can be a very good idea.
The great thing about the market is that conditions always change if you wait long enough. There will be times when it feels like stocks will never go up again, times when nothing seems to go down, and times when it feels completely random and confused. Eventually things always shift and the character of the market is suddenly quite different. All you have to do is wait long enough and you'll have a different sort of market to deal with.
Don't give up. You have to keep at it day after day so that you have a feel for the action and are mentally and emotionally prepared as things do change. There may be a long period when you don't make any progress and you feel frustrated and confused, but you just have to work through it and wait for greater clarity to emerge.
The market wouldn't be so potentially lucrative if it were easy. Like most good things in life, it requires some hard work if you expect to reap the rewards.
The bulls have some good news flow and are back on track this morning. There have a fair amount of room to run on the upside before they smack into the next level of technical resistance, and I'm giving them room to do so. Yes, volume has been poor and the upside momentum is not very impressive, but this market has been able to run on that sort of action -- and it's doing it again.