“May you live all the days of your life.” Jonathan Swift
Another huge gap open and then we began to fade.
Things did look like they were going to roll over so I shorted SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) at 189 and lost about $0.30 and I also tried a Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) short and lost about $2 so not spectacular, but something to do I suppose.
If it were sunnier perhaps I’d have saved that money and just gone to the beach...
Anyhow, after I took some losses things really began to perk up and several bottoms began to break higher after consolidating for a few days so I did quite a bit of buying the last hour or two.
I was looking to reduce into the close but strength was evident so I held.
I know I’ve warned about holding overnight but the behavior changed for the positive today so now we wait to see if I’m right and head higher or not.
I am not even risking 1% of my portfolio per position but we could certainly gap down large and increase that number.
You’ve got to be able to be quick and identify changes in this type of market and I think I have, but I’ve been wrong before.
I’m not sure if these trades will be just overnight or a few days or, if all goes well, they may be able to be held for months from these low levels, ideally.
We’ve seen a few days of consolidation now and the NASDAQ Composite is leading us higher out of this consolidation but I need to see iShares Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) and SPY confirm tomorrow or this strength is likely to fade.
I may have bought too much today and tomorrow will tell that tale but the strength I was seeing in my positions justified my new buys, to me at least, and for now.
A good SPY move above 195 should see a swift move to 205.