The market is still knocking at the door against a well-defined level of resistance for some type of breakout, as you can see on the 30-minute SPY chart below. Due to the overall corrective nature of the market and the lack of proliferation of high probability chart setups, though, I am not looking for a major bottom just yet. Even if we break out, there is a high probability it will not be a clean, off-to-the-races, multi-week affair. Instead, the idea is to take this market one day at a time. The bulls have held onto most of the gains from yesterday’s afternoon spike, which is probably just another reason to embrace cash instead of leaning heavily short.

Also note that Treasuries remain firm, as TLT is actually up more than the major indices today. In addition, risk currencies like the Aussie and Euro are slightly off. So, as I noted in my morning post, I am not chalking up too much to today’s price action, on top of the quad witching summer Friday. Not making trades out of boredom might seem like a trivial thing to harp on, but over time it will save your account from countless blunders. Just as avoiding “gateway” drugs to the more lethal stuff can save your life, so too with trading and saving your portfolio over time.

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