The pattern of the market for weeks has been soft opens and strong closes. That is textbook bullish action. But this morning saw gap-and-fail action and, even worse, some downside momentum as profit taking picks up. It has been a while since a trend-down day, but the signs are there today and I've tightened up.
My message lately is to stick with the trend until there is weak price action. There is some today, and if we take Friday's lows at 1494, we have the makings of a rollover pattern. Breadth is running better than 2-to-1 negative on the NYSE and there are good hits to recent winners like 3D Systems (DDD), Stratasys (SSYS), Amazon (AMZN) and Google (GOOG).
The key to dealing with this action is to honor your stops. Take the hit and don't just sit there and hope it is a temporary hiccup. It might be and you can always rebuy, but the important thing is to protect profits and capital.
A few things on my radar this morning are Arris Group (ARRS), PBF Energy (PBF) and Opko Health (OPK), but I'm keeping it small and tight. The bears may finally have a small victory if we don't see a bounce in the next hour or two.
