Today on the Marketbeat: Tales of a Bi-Polar Market

Closing #'s : 

DOW: -189 to 9,258

S&P: -12 to 984

NASDAQ: -15 to 1,740

RUS2K: -12 to 546

TSX/S&P: +225 to 10,055

VIX: +3.85 to 57.53

Internals:

Core Sector List: 10/4 Negative (Bears)

NYSE

A/D Line: -1700 Ticks

Breadth: 2/1 Negative

Trin: 0.74

NASDAQ

A/D Line: -1300 Ticks

Breadth: 2/1 Negative

Trin: 0.77

Today on the Marketbeat: Tales of a Bi-Polar Market

Chart of Internals (Click to enlarge):

The theme of today's trading was Bull or Bear? as the day started negative, opening lower and then bouncing lower off the Pivot point (See chart fig 1.0 - Pt 1). There's wasn't any buyers out there until 1pm rolled along ans some of the Bulls apparently thought they'd show face...at least for awhile. The bulls broke the trendline (see chart - pt 2) and then the secondary trendline until finally pegging the Pivot point. After this point the market was range bounce between the PP and the Mid Point between PP and S1. That is, until the bears woke up and tore the market back down near the lows of the day. Interestingly enough, a trendline connecting today's low, with each subsequent low of the day shows the ES making higher lows on the day, which is interestign as it pegged the highs almost exactly each time, but the lows got higher. 

Chart Fig 1.0 (Click to enlarge):

Under the hood we say internals that guided us through the inside trading day. Watching indicators like the $TICK and Breadth can help a trader guide his way through this proverbial minefield of trades. Each measure volume input on the market, and are some of the only indicators not based on lagging standards.  A good example of this is watching for extreme tick readings of +/- 1000. In a contained market like today's, those readings can be good indicator's for getting out of a play with profits. Take a look at chart fig 1.1.

 You can see that around 10:40, the Tick almost reaches -1000, but stops short. Again around 2:20 the TICK reaches +1000, For example if your long this is a good spot to sell, and if your flat, this could be a good area to short, as you see on the chart - the price action pegs the pivot point and heads down breaking the uptrend line of the day, putting in a 15pt swing. 

Chart Fig 1.1 (Click to enlarge):

The core sector list came in today 10/4, but was pretty much flat all day going into the last 15 min of madness. The A/D Lines came in @ -1700 (NYSE) and -1300 (NASDAQ). while the trins close at 0.7. 

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