Jobs Friday is tomorrow. The market pulled back into that event today, closing near the lows. The employment situation report will be released at 8:30 am EST.
The market internals remained weak for the 4th day in a row and the VIX moved higher two days in a row. A 13 handle VIX is certainly not bearish but sometimes the direction is incremental and stealth. The Russell 2000 took the dip followed by the Dow, while the Nasdaq and S&P were reluctant but still down on the day and in that mindset that "every day is supposed to be an up day now". Occasionally, the stock market gets into that drift higher mode where it tries to capture risk adjusted returns without the risk. We tried to ride with the bulls early on a gap continuation trade but were stopped out. We then had some short signals that were choppy but ultimately prevailed. The V-Reversal trade tried to get long again but was stopped out on a relatively small loss.
The dip buying at highs has been aggressive and an interesting response at these levels.
The Nasdaq 100 ran up to the highs on the year in July and gave a big percentage of the gains back in about 25 calendar days. On August 5, it was 600 points away from the 2023 closing price. The mid-year pullback was a 16% drop in less than a month. We are not predicting a pullback even though the markets are at extremes, but it would be normal to have a pullback, so we are always prepared for markets that can trade much lower. It is important to trade without an extreme bias since the direction of the market can change quickly.
The One Million MNS was down -0.32% on the day and the 250K Portfolio was down -$640 in live trading.
The hypothetical results for the Stock Index Portfolio 18 was -$2,135 per E-mini and -$214.50 per Micro.
The hypothetical results for the Top 50 Select was -$1,860.
The hypothetical results for the 50K Portfolio was +$165.
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