Hey Market Pilot,  Once again the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) held a meeting. How will this influence the market this time? A few years ago the release of their minutes would mean wild volatility immediately and usually into the daily close. But over the course of time, that volatility has morphed into a relatively calm two hours after the release, and then a surprise move the next day. All of this happens when the FOMC, or Fed, may not even change anything in their statements. They could print the … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, It seems like we are in the time of one-day pullbacks. Despite “bad breadth” and the indexes being held up by a handful of names, all we needed was one stiff day to the downside and that provided enough of an opportunity for buyers to step in and buy the dip ─ hard. I have been contemplating an idea, and I don’t know if it’s true or possible, but here it is. We are all thinking the market is going to roll over and get pulled down … Read more

Hey Market Pilot, The market has had a few wild swings lately. While the down move was the easier one to catch, staying out of the market during times like these can be a wise option, too. As traders we certainly have an urge and itch to always be in the action and making trades, but if you find yourself losing money then maybe it isn’t your kind of activity. By not losing money, you are actually staying wealthier so it should be viewed as a positive when staying in … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, We finally got the pullback I have been looking for, but this is only the beginning. We had a dip on July 8, but that dip was bought and price did not get rejected by the 15-minute, 50 simple moving average (SMA). This moving average is what I use to initially see where a move is going. While I was looking for it on July 9, it didn’t happen and therefore no short trade. Then we got another break last week on July 15 and this put … Read more

Have you heard this? “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” This idea sure seems to be ringing true for anyone trying to short the market lately. I am also in the “how is the market staying up” camp, but I have made it a general rule of mine to not go short. Therefore while I am watching the indexes, primarily the QQQ continue to reach new highs day after day, I am astonished by the movement but not doing anything about it. What makes this … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, The old saying “you can’t see the forest through the trees” means that sometimes you are too close to see the bigger picture. When you are in the middle of the trees, you can only see for a short distance and you don’t know if you are in a massive rain forest or just a small patch of foliage. The same can be said for stocks. If you are down on the five-minute chart trading all day, you may forget the bigger picture of what the stock … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, The weeks leading up to the 4th of July are typically seasonally bullish and this was true for the S&P 500 (SPY) and Invesco QQQ (Nasdaq exchange traded fund), and a handful of stocks. But for the rest of the market, we actually saw a lot of names sink to the downside. It was frustrating to be right on the market sentiment, but tackling the wrong set of names for the week. Now that the holiday has passed, the opportunity to catch meaningful longs has also passed. It … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, Good news, the S&P 500 (SPY) and Invesco QQQ (Nasdaq exchange traded fund) have been hitting new all-time highs. This reinforces the stance I had that the SPY move down in mid-June was just a dip. It was a little intense at the time, but I definitely wasn’t communicating anything bearish to the Moxie IndicatorTM subscribers. It’s always great to hear about the market reaching new highs, but it can make me a bit nervous, too. This is because there is always a pullback lurking somewhere and … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, It has been a long few months since we have seen the small caps set up strong. The Moxie IndicatorTM subscribers had a really great run with small caps from November to February and then they all pulled back. Some small caps really imploded ─ or at least that’s what it looked like on the lower time frames. However, if you step back and zoom out, many of the stocks I follow really just pulled back to support on their monthly and weekly time frames. These are … Read more

Hey Market Pilots, Timing is pretty important in trading. I am sure it is even more important when dealing with options since they have a specific time value associated with them. Either way, you can be right about a trend or the overall performance of a stock, but if you enter or exit at the wrong time your returns can be hampered. This is something I had to deal with last week. I could see the kind of patterns and formations setting up on the weekly time frame for my … Read more