ETF Prophet

The Qs made considerable progress this past week, climbing off the 20DSMA and almost making it to the 200DSMA. Today’s action however, completely reversed that gain. We’ll look at some of the interesting nuances of Friday’s intraday chart tomorrow within the context of the weekly update. Although volume was not particlularly high today, the virulence [...]

This February, the U.S. equity indices posted their fourth consecutive month of declines. The S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrials and NASDAQ 100 cash indices recorded losses of -3.48%, -3.04% and -5.22%, respectively. Although there was a seemingly relentless flow of negative news focused on continued write downs among a widening cast of financial players, deteriorating [...]

Lots of cross currents on a day like today, but you don’t need me to tell you the’ve all ended up contributing to the downside. As of now, there is strong resistance at the VWAP and the 5-day MA has turned over. From a pure technical perspective, we looked vulnerable yesterday, but I thought with [...]

Qs trading today was notable for the lack of pivot hits. Today’s volume was almost identical to yesterday’s so no tell there, but considering that both the open and the close were dead on the PP and yesterday’s high provided heavy overhead resistance, we’re likely to see some short term weakness coming in. As tomorrow [...]

This is a follow up to this week’s posts on the XLF, QQQQ and XLB. I was paging through the latest issue of FUTURES magazine and noticed a full page ad from Proshares listing 35 ultra short ETFs they now offer. Some of the ETFs have pretty thin volume and, as a result have .10-.15 [...]

Good day to have been hedged. That said, I’ll be looking for signs indicating it’s time to take them off. On one hand, cumulative tick is extremely negative, and rarely reverses intra-day once it gets this bad to the downside. On the other, the five-day moving averages remain upward and the leaders (XLF, IYT & [...]

This market continues to impress — not that the Bernanke easy money commentary and higher loan limits didn’t hurt. We did get several short signals around mid-day yesterday. Because they “arrived” in a flat market, I elected to leg-in, so really just hedged at this point. Note that Tick and AD line are effectively flat. [...]

This is the final of 3 ETF studies this week. I included the XLB for a number of reasons that make it an attractive trading vehicle. Primary is the increase in volume and options open interest liquidity over the past year. The XLB currently averages 12M shares a daily and although the open interest is [...]

It’s a nice move with Semi’s leading the charge, but it this keeps up all day long I will use the strength to rehedge and go short if indicated. So, is all the bad news that’s out there — out there? This what the market seems to be saying over the last several days and [...]

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post on the XLF. Today we look at the Qs, my favorite trading vehicle, and some of the characteristics of that unique ETF. Below are the top ten components, which comprise almost 50% of the Qs asset base. As a daytrader of Qs options, I always maintain a separate [...]

Note how the cumulative tick is slowly going negative. For the day, I think it will be important to hold at the rising 5-day moving average (dotted blue line). So far we have done nothing to resolve this sideways pattern the market has been trapped in for the last two weeks.

There’s been considerable blog chatter regarding the XLF lately so I thought it would be interesting to see what’s going on with the ETF.Below is a breakdown of the XLF top holdings: What I find interesting here is that both the put/call ratio and the price are ratchetting down together. Typically you would expect to [...]

The weekly 3 linear regression study (above) shows the Qs continuing to hug the lower LR30 channel band, with little indication of momentum towards a mean reversion. As long as the Qs continue this downslope pattern, the risk reward favors the short side and unless you’ve never read this blog before you know the mantra. [...]

Top window is compliments http://www.tradingday.com/ This is a free/fee site with some handy tools for both technical and undamental analysis. Once the Qs failed to break resistance midday at S1 it looked like a sure thing for a decline to S2 although volume was suspiciously thin. The fact that it was Friday and a fade [...]

Today looks just just like yesterday. I would’nt look for a “bottom” just yet, cumulative tick is just too negative… maybe if we tank into the close I’ll think of a long hold over the weekend. Notice how today’s peaks and troughs align nicely with relative volume spikes (the thin dotted green/ red line). This [...]

Almost like any other Fed day. This is day seven of what has been a very tight up/ down/ up/ down random walk string of pearls. I’m keeping hedged until a more firm direction plays itself out. There is still a bit of a negative edge ahead. NEVER INVESTMENT ADVICE

A lot of blog chatter recently has centered on expectations for the VIX. Two of my favorite checkpoints are http://vixandmore.blogspot.com/ and http://adamsoptions.blogspot.com/ My current market expectations for the VIX can best be shown on the above charts, which are the 3 linear regression studies (30,11,3) of the weekly bars of the VIX and the VXN [...]

Here’s a little 12 day chart of the 60 minute bars of the Qs and the NYAD, showing the relationship between the high bar NYAD open and the subsequent fade down in days 1,4,5,6,8,9,10 and 12. This is not a bullish pattern, as 8 of 12 days showed followup weakness. Then, here’s a little item [...]