Stalled

Hmmm, let's see. Last Friday I was hopeful for some more upside from this market but by last night I wrote

I'm getting a feeling that we might be in for a bit of a pullback tomorrow.

and that's exactly what we got, with a 20 point loss in the Dow. I ended up not taking any short positions though. In fact, I made no trades today, and judging by the low volume, a lot of other folks stayed home too. So where next?

Today's action brought us right the the lower edge of the rising RTC channel and that is a bearish setup, but not a trigger. If we are lower again tomorrow, I will reverse the swing trend arrow. But for now, it remains green. The indicators are all looking toppy right about now and the daily VIX did hit a support level of 18 from which its rallied every time back to October, but it has not reached its lower Bollinger band. And as of this writing (1:15 AM EST), all three futures are up, with the ES up 0.23%. These sorts of mixed messages are consistent with a directionless market.

My general feeling is that we may be in for several days of consolidation before making another run at the 11,440 resistance level. I'd be surprised to see any major moves in either direction tomorrow. The market this year has shown an ability going back to September to spend anywhere from 3 to 6 days just doing nothing before resuming its previous trend. And historically, though December as a whole is a strong month, it has a weak spot in the middle.

So I'm temporarily putting both my long hat and short hat in the closet until I see some clear evidence of which fashion is in style.