Crossroads

Wow, I sure wasn't expecting today's 168 point drop in the Dow. Even upon further review, as they say, I still see nothing in yesterday's technicals that could have foreseen this. But it is what it is. The uptrend I thought was starting is hereby canceled, and after just one day, I'm taking the green trend arrow back down. Honestly, I now have no clue where the market may be headed in the near term.

In fact, today's nasty surprise leaves us at an important crossroads. Tomorrow may well determine if we're actually in a longer downtrend that began on February 22nd, or if the 12K support level can hold once more as it did twice last week and send us back higher. On the downside, the futures are all trading lower by 0.2 to 0.3% right now (1:30 AM EST). And even worse, we are now nearly down to the lower edge of therising ES weekly RTC that goes all the way back to last August. Dropping below current levels would be quite a bearish sign.

All in all, it feels like Mr. Market's mood has suddenly turned glum. Whether it's the price of oil, civil war in Libya, Bernanke's commentary, or whatever, I'm taking the long hat off and reaching for the short hat.

In fact, if this keeps up I'm just going to take a vacation. This is not my kind of trading environment. Especially if we're up tomorrow. I don't like it when I get out of sync with the market and I just hate getting whipsawed. Better to just stand aside until things calm down a bit.

Trades

Today I got out of my WIN trade at 12.63 for a small profit. I'm slowly increasing my cash position and am now 39% in cash, my highest level in quite some time now. I also bought a 20 put as insurance on my holdings in GE. That's a stock I don't really want to sell, but it's looking like it may go lower still. It has now broken under a rising weekly RTC channel.