Today on the Marketbeat: 400pt Rally....No comment

Closing #"s

DOW: +418 to 8,996

S&P: +35 to 942

NASDAQ: +75 to 1,703

RUS2K: +29 to 531

TSX/S&P: -23 to 9,300

VIX: -1.84 to 67.38

Internals: 

Core Sector List: 14/2 To the Bulls

-NYSE-

Breadth: 3.5/1 Positive

Trin: 0.77

A/D Line: +1235

-NASDAQ-

Breadth: 6/1 Positive

Trin: 0.32

A/D Line: +1236

Today on the Marketbeat: 400pt Rally....No comment

Today was a prime example of how into expiration we generally witness some bullish action, especially towards the day of expiration. The Dow and S&P500 both closed up about 4% today (Dow up 418, S&P up 35), however this is only half of the tale of the ticker. If you were to look at the intra-day price action (which we all know I do) you would notice that the low of the day today was 8190 on the YM, and the high/close was 9006, this amounts to a intraday swing in the broad exchanges or about 820 pts roughly. That is huge bullish action in the midst of a strong bear market. As we are most likely to see more bearish selling probably tomorrow or early next week, this is still good bullish action. 

What gave this bull rally the juice to run was of course the internals. The NYSE and NASDAQ breadth ripped out of a double helix day towards 3pm and didn't look back. The A/D lines for both he NYSE and NQ also put in respectable gains today, while the TICK pushed above zero for a good part of the after noon. The Trin(s) paved the downward trend pointing to possible bullish action. All these combined with a sharp eye on the Futures and one could see a slightly choppy, but bullish rally none the less. 

The real question is how do we take what we saw today, and this week and use it to move forward? The answer is as always, let the market show its hand and play off what we see. 

Starting From Scratch:

Today I like to take some time to discuss weekend homework. I have found myself personally slacking on my weekend studies since we are in such a volatile market right now. I justify myself in doing a lil bit of market homework on the weekend, usually Sunday night, listen to some videos, and calculate my pivots. However, there is no excuse for being unprepared. The fact of the matter is we do not know when the market will rebound, could be months, or weeks. So a healthy weekend routine is critical to staying on top of your game. 

Here are some changes to my weekend routine I plan on making this weekend.

1) Number 1, I will start working on weekend watch lists, now the source of your tickers doesn't matter, what matters is the personal homework you perform on each lead you get. 

2) Secondly, I will make sure that all that can be done ahead of time, is done before Sunday (ie: Pivots [can be plotted Friday night, notes on week also can be completed Friday) these are issues that don't necessarily take a lot of time out of your day, but they defiantly take your mind off the present. 

3) Next I'd like to take some time to develop an idea of what could go on in the coming week. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not in the business of predicting trends, bottoms, tops....What I mean is using technical analysis, I plan on getting a picture of what could happen, giving me outlooks for bullish or bearish swings. This way I have plans for both ways, as to help not getting married to a side.

4) Lastly, during the early weekend, when I am calm, composed and able minded, Id like to set aside at least 1h during the whole weekend to learn about something new. For instance this weekend I plan on working on my Forex trading, developing plays, methods and trading plans for it. This is something that will help any trader as in the world of Finance there's a saying.."You don't know, what you don't know" so there is always room for learning. 

One other thing that I will do is listen to different media feeds on the coming week, my Two favorite feeds are both free to receive and offer great advice. 1) is The Marketcast, which is provided by Investools and is available on Podcast through Itunes for free, just search Marketcast in the Itunes store under podcast. 2) Is the Shadowtraders Sunday video, this has been a bit of a saving grace for me when I find the time to watch it. It isn't long, usually no more than 10 minutes. And what they do is run down quickly what happened the week prior and discuss possibilities for the next week. Very key. 

Once again I hope that these ideas can help, and maybe offer a bit of insight different from yours.