Tug Of War Escalates:
The hallmark traits of a healthy market are CLOSING on their highs, often as a session begins weak. The opposite of that action could be the definition of how the benchmarks fared Thursday. Decent early gains quickly faded, and as many stated last weeks lows were critical to hold. On the chart of the Nasdaq below one sees Tuesday recorded a bullish inverted hammer candle, after more than a 1200 handle decline in just 4 sessions top to bottom. Wednesday registered yet another bullish candle with a spinning top which often indicates a potential change in the prevailing trend. Of course even with the “historic” correction, it would be hard to say that a new possible uptrend was ready to emerge. The VIX held its 200 day SMA, roughly at the round 30 number, and among the FANG names, the old reliable MSFT lost its 50 day SMA recording a bearish engulfing candle in the process. NFLX is off 7% this week, as it charts witnesses some ugly technical damage as well. GOOGL, which has been a laggard until recently, seems to be yearning for its prior soft ways as its cup base breakout, and a bull flag too. Perhaps for a first time in awhile we can say advantage bears.