Though the market has ticked up a bit more since the open, it's one of those gap-up-and-sit days. There has been very little intraday action after the first hour of trading and most stocks are holding up and treading water.
Breadth has slipped slightly but is still running better than 5-to-1 positive with all sectors green. Volume isn't anything special, which isn't what you want to see technically, but low-volume bounces have not been that much of a negative in recent years.
Trading on days like this can be a bit frustrating even if you book good early gains. It's very easy to sell down a stock like Apple (AAPL) too early after catching a 20 point or more move and trying to find new buys when up this much is not easy. Traders simply don't trust that there will be sustained momentum, especially as we start heading into more severe overhead.
The market had produced many V-shaped bounces in the last few years, but I attribute that to the power of quantitative easing. That is no longer the fact it once was, which makes me much less confident that this is one of those bounces that will keep on running.
I've sold down my positions aggressively and I am not finding much new to buy. Stocks like US Silica Holdings (SLCA), my stock of the week, just aren't easy entries here and I'm not going to force it. Stocks need some basing action to give better entries.
