ETF Prophet

Regardless of whether the market has closed up or down, SPY has consistently closed near the lower end of its range over the last 5 days. Below is a list of all the instances where SPY closed in the bottom third of its daily range for five days in a r…

On Monday the SPY closed at a 50-day low for the 1st time since the beginning of October – just over 150 trading days ago.  Not only is it at an intermediate-term low, it is strongly oversold on a short-term basis based on several measures. &nb…

Despite reaching a short-term oversold condition several days ago, the market has failed to mount any kind of substantial bounce. I looked at this a number of ways over the weekend and in the subscriber letter last night. One study I conducted looked …

I have seen some evidence over the last few days suggesting a bounce is likely. But it hasn’t been overwhelming and there is one thing that has been notably absent – a rise in the CBI. The Quantifiable Edges Capitulative Breadth Indicator (CBI) m…

Yesterday I showed the strong seasonal tendency of the SPX on the 1st
trading day of May.  One reader wrote and
asked whether the day-1 strength exhibits a tendency to follow through or to
reverse.  I took a quick look and was
surprised at h…

I’ve discussed many times before how the 1st trading day of
the month tends to be seasonally bullish. May has been one of the strongest
months, both based on total return and % profitable. In 2010 I published a chart that showed May 1 returns over …

A couple of months ago (Feb 27th blog) I showed the study below. It looks at instances of SPX and VIX both closing positive on a Friday. The VIX has a tendency to move opposite the SPX, so when they move in the same direction, it can often suggest an …

Here is one from the Quantifiable Edges Guide to Fed Days that is triggering this morning:

Strong gaps up on the morning of a Fed Day have typically been followed by more strength that day.

Unfilled gaps can be a signal of strength in the direction of the gap.  But when they are quickly reversed by a sign of weakness that can suggest the first move was false.  Friday’s unfilled gap up in SPY was a sign of strength.  Monday’…

Two weeks ago I showed how a negative SOX on a day when the NDX is strong can suggest bearish implications for the short-term.

Last night Johan, a frequent reader, observed that the reverse had occurred (NDX down over 1% while SOX was up).  He wo…

April expirations week has historically been very bullish. I showed this last year in the 4/11/11 blog post and have updated it below.

The consistency has been very impressive. Last year was one of the few that was a loser from start to finish.

On March 2 I discussed a setup in which the NYSE TICK manages to trade above 0 for the entire 1st 30 minutes of the trading day.  Such a setup used to suggest bullish implications, but that no longer appeared to be the case.

I also have an old st…

Below is a quick look at how the SPX has performed in the past on Holy Thursday. Like the last day before many long weekends, it has shown a bullish propensity over the years.

The numbers are compelling, and it is especially impressive to see how …

One interesting aspect of Monday’s trading was the discrepancy between the NDX and the SOX. While the NDX rose 1.1% on Monday, the SOX declined slightly – which is unusual action. Typically, such action has been followed by weakness in the NDX. Th…

Last year I showed how since 1994 the 1st week in April has been especially good to the SPX. Below I have updated those results to include 2011.

As you can see, the statistics here strongly favor the bulls. Below is the full list of trades using a 4-…

In last night’s letter I decided to look at other times where a 3-day pullback was coming off a 50-day high and was strong enough to put SPY below its 10ma, but not strong enough to make it close at a 10-day low. These filters seem to fairly represen…

Yesterday’s move to new highs was accompanied by very strong breadth. The Up Volume % on the NYSE came in at 91%. It is fairly unusual to see such strong breadth occur when the market is hitting an intermediate-term high. The results below show a…

The study below is one I mentioned on Twitter (http://twitter.com/qerob) yesterday. Often leading up to a Fed Day the VIX will rise as traders fret over what the Fed might say or do. Monday was one of those rare occasions where VIX closed at an inte…