Today is not the day to try and make your bullish stance.  Step aside, let the big boys slug it out.

Yours truly was marching behind a 10 ton selling tank and using my bayonet to stab any stray bulls.  I did this until we met the hypo 2 target from this morning’s report.  That was enough gore for me. I needed lunch and respite from the action.

Since then I have been surveying the pitch from the sideline.  What I see troubles me.  The bear tanks are still tracing precise lines across the field and effortlessly gunning down the isolated buyer groups.  Good god men, stay in your bunkers.  There is no backup coming.  Your leader, Fed Chair Yellen is dehydrated and reeling from the carnage.  We haven’t been able to reach her in days.

Just sit put and perhaps the French will save us.  Until then, plan for more pain tomorrow.

If it looks like a chicken and walks like a chicken, it’s probably not a duck. Early price action has me wondering if we will see a trend day down. The market is doing a good job auctioning lower. The pushes are smooth and covering about 12 points a clip. Profile is thin until a soft zone at 4122 then leans out again until all the way down at 4066.50. Between those two points is the 4100 century point otherwise it’s thin.

My best advice is not to be a heroic knife catcher here. Let a bigger buyer step in first—someone who recaptures the daily mid. As a matter of fact we need to make a new session high before I can consider adding exposure.

I stopped out a few longs so far this morning.

This week, I can already tell, is going to have two Tuesdays and maybe three Thursdays. It will definitely have multiple Wednesdays. There is a ton going on here and if you’re not an organized person it can become confusing rather quickly. You do not want to be confused about your stance in these conditions. If you are, go into capital preservation mode ASAP. Cash up and go sit in the woods. Otherwise, be prepared for a serious week.

It is time to posture into the tail end of Q3. The third quarter is the serious one after spending all summer lounging by the water. I am fully aware of this and log a small note on my Switchboard to keep this social factor on my radar. The higher timeframe is definitely active here.

I have also parsed all the cycle data. This is something I do every weekend inside the Exodus Strategy Session. Keeping these high value signals organized is paramount if you expect to capitalize off them.

Third, and a tidbit I would like to share with you, the reader class, are the quotes I included in this week’s strategy session. I don’t consider them motivational. They are more, “Life is tough. No sense puckering your face about it.” See below:

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer

“There is nothing bad in undergoing change—or good in emerging from it.” – Marcus Aurelius

Distinguished Exodus Members – the latest Strategy Session is out.  Find it on the navigation pane next to the anchor symbol and give it a read.

You guys can fight over the leftovers. I added some risk down at daily low and then removed some on this little push.  My work here is done and intend find some crisper, cleaner air.

Primary hypo still in play, and these open gap out of range days can be big.  Buyers may have a go at overnight high but internals sort of suck and this all could very well just evolve into a slow Friday grind.

Man this is tricky. Fresh out of the shop, my newest algo (currently operating under codename “party pooper”) fired into this afternoon’s short squeeze. At the same time, more studied and robust algos are guiding me higher. Today NASDAQ printed a neutral extreme—the 3^rd highest directional conviction day type. And we spent most of today pressing right up against my max pain point. It was a predicament this complex a few months back that birthed Switchboard.

Switchboard is a spreadsheet that considers all signals and objectively spits out a bias. It has a short bias right now, barely. So unless we trend higher tomorrow I am inclined to book some gains into the weekend. But if we trend up tomorrow, well…

That puts some interesting stats on the table heading into October. I love a new month and October is like top 3 best weekends in the year.

Despite equities getting hammered overnight, and despite my SEE YOU IN 160 NASDAQS being wrong, I made money today. Funny how that works sometimes. It is because top tech, yesterday’s theme, was resilient today. Look for tech to continue to dominate. Why? Because if anyone was paying attention they would have seen Exodus flagging XLK oversold yesterday.

JEEZE GUYS, this isn’t rocket surgery! (I stole that one from Morgan_03)

Relatively speaking, of course.

There was one piece of context I was hoping we could clean up while we were down here—the open gap from September 4th. Do you remember that day? It was the Friday before Labor Day. Like anyone rushing out the door for a long weekend, participating NASDAQ traders left behind unfinished business. Lo and behold, we’ve revisited and cleaned it up, see below:

That’s good news. Rallying without filling this gap would put a caveat on our foundation stone. My friend, you do not want a single crack in your foundation stones, choose them wisely.

The bad news is we still have two gaps below, and they are way lower. My hope is they are far enough to leave them out of mind for now. These are the gaps we left behind when China cut their bank borrowing rate back on 8/24..deep in the hole.

If we go back down to the lows today I may stop out a few longs.  That’s all I have to say about that. Carry on.

The populous should count themselves grateful that I don’t grow tired of their insolent behavior. It is probably because I was once in their shoes and not long ago. Back then 90% of the questions I asked ‘experts’ or even people I perceived more advanced earned crickets. I assumed they were so incredibly important, so beyond the query of a blossoming lad, that to take even a moment from their Mr. Important Pants day was out of the question. Then I realized no one knows what the hell is going on and took it upon myself to map a route. Oh how this lede has digressed…

My super computers have triangulated on a rare opportunity to punch out some gains. Alls I had to do was show up and execute when everyone else was crying uncle.

Tech is your leader here, the best leader, the leader you all deserve. Go forth and procure some before it is too late. Or don’t, see if I care.

Better yet, prove me wrong, then when I am in New Your City October 24^th throw a banana creamed pie in my face.

I made the following chart where I superimposed the old ledge I’ve being going on about all day:

What this level represents, in layman’s terms, is an area that traded poorly. It was left behind but not forgotten. Today we revisited it and found buyers. However, they only reacted to the prices, and we have not seen any form of initiative buying so far.

Instead we formed balance (seen on far right of above image). Balance suggests the market is accepting these lower prices. Before we can become constructive again, we need to leave this area and then use it like a stepping stone to begin marching the auction higher.

This morning NASDAQ TRIN went absolutely insane and registered a reading around 135. I went back on 6 years of data and didn’t see another instance nearly this extreme. From my observations, when TRIN blows way out you are seeing extreme sentiment and price is at-or-near an inflection point.

Once we tested the ledge I went ahead and bought Apple calls. This fixes my risk but also levers me up.

This market has required serious intestinal fortitude all year long. The ugliest moments have been the best opportunities and the most textbook beautiful moments have been wicked bull traps.  Here’s to hoping that theme holds true.

There is order to these markets. I know they seem noisy and chaotic, but every passing day proves to me how methodical this device is. A market exists to bring together as many buyers and sellers as possible. Price is the mechanism and volume is the measure of proficiency. Then you peel back a layer and see how the underlying components are behaving, constantly reminding yourself not to get caught in the minutia. My approach is tailor made for these somewhat choppy waters.

My levels are straight fire. Every time I take iBankCoin headline, someone rolls their eyes at my morning NASDAQ report. They call it dry and boring. It brings me joy how most people have no desire to understand the process behind trading. It means there’s lots of meat on the bone for me.

My models are coming of age. I remember 44 weeks ago how I excited I was to take over Weekly Strategy Session (now Exodus Strategy Session and better than ever). It meant more work, but it also meant accountability to my research. I wouldn’t just throw out picks all willy-nilly and come back next week with a clean slate, like a Catholic. Nope, I set out to build a model and show anyone willing to stick around when I was right or wrong.   It turned out I was wrong about a few ideas I had on trading.

I have a powerful set of tools. Algos, charts, quality data, and order flow. The mother ship is agile and picks up disturbances on the exchange seconds before others catch wind. Priceless seconds when it comes to execution.

The last month has treated me well. Today made me feel good about myself, just like Bluestar said it would. Now all I have to do is love the discipline I know and let it support me through Wednesday which, according the mystics is when the world will end.

As always, TBD.

You have to be an opportunist.  My model is nearing 50 weeks old, meaning it has nearly 50 samples, meaning it’s nearing statistical significance.  I, being the eager S.O.B. my mother birthed, have now taken it upon myself to press my newfound edge.

It’s real nice, 80% nice.

According to my edge, you just missed your buying op.  Targeting /ES 1991, the best year of my life.  I was 6.

I covered BIS, thanks Hillary.