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2011 has been a crazy ride, but not necessarily a ride on the highway where you arrive at a destination. Rather, the market has been more of an amusement park ride, where you have random thrills and moments of horror and then proceed to get off in the same place you started. As we work through the final month of this year, the bears seem to be content with moving to cash, while bulls are making a valiant attempt to buy the dips.
This morning, as an example, the bears had a chance to push us much lower off of the open. However, as I write this the bulls are trying to push us back to even. Overall, the market has essentially worked on going sideways over the past few days, which I noted was a likely scenario after the V-shaped bounce from the Thanksgiving week sell-off. You can see that denoted on the zoomed-out 30-minute chart of the SPY below.
I am still using a long/short strategy inside 12631. I am in a good mental zone, focused and as objective as ever. So, I am not too concerned with the direction in which this market breaks–I will adjust accordingly, as has been one of my hallmarks.
If the market rallies into the afternoon, a few long ideas for you: CAB ERTS HCBK PIR XEC. For the bears, DECK looks vulnerable here, breaking down below what looked like a bull flag.
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