Friday, February 4, 2011

Selling pressure abated

Well apparently the declining VIX today trumped history and the weak overnight futures. I was expecting a flat to lower close today. Instead we got a modest 20 point advance. Although that wasn't much, it makes me a bit more optimistic about tomorrow. Right now (1:05 AM EST) all three futures are up by about 0.1% and the VIX still has room to go lower tomorrow. Never underestimate the power of the VIX as a predictor.

In addition, we stopped the steady daily decline in volume from the past four days. Also, all the indicators have come off their overbought levels that we saw just before last Friday's 166 point dump. And on the history side, we note that the fifth trading day of February tends to be positive.

Note also that we had a bunch of economic news out today and most of it was actually above expectations, but the market reaction wasn't as positive as I might have expected. Tomorrow we've got some payroll numbers and the all-important unemployment rate coming out. I think any positive news there should send stocks higher, particularly since we've crossed the 12K level convincingly now. So tomorrow I'm looking for at least a gain comparable to today's, maybe more. We'll see.

No trades today.

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