Trading System Signals on 03-18-2026

The short selling trend strategies as well as the NQ Liberation were the highlights of the day on FOMC Day.

NQ Liberation Trades

Short Selling Trend Strategies in 27 System Portfolio

The mean reversion and counter trend strategies were down on the day and traded for a potential rally in early trade. The V-Reversals and counter trend strategies weighed on the portfolios as the V-Reversal strategies were stopped out on a trade setup that has worked many times.

The market extended the range quite a bit beyond the early morning lows. This is a continuation of the weaker afternoon trade that we saw on Thursday and Friday of last week. The NYSE TICK still stayed above -1000. The hawkish Fed has the market concerned as the quest for easy money is taking longer than expected for the eager easy money dip buying crowd. Mean reversion for some rapid panic selling that will cause the confident dip buyers to second guess their strategy is extremely overdue. We will see if we get some follow through on this price action and a good trading environment the rest of the week and rest of the month. The markets have certainly been more difficult to trade lately having been "held in place" for an extended period of time.

Some of the bullish commentary coming into today was that the markets were oversold. The markets were only a few percentage points from all-time highs and in a narrow range for such a long time period. Oversold and overbought indicators based on longer term charts are not so relevant in such a narrow range. In this case, the price action needs to follow through more and the oversold indicator can be a sell signal for a larger range move.

The VIX closed above 25 while interest rates zoomed higher and Crude oil is trading around $99 at the close.

The portfolios are in drawdown alerts as we are near the end of the week and second half of the month. Historically, we have gone through cycles where markets were challenging during the first part of the month with price action being more favorable towards the end of the week and during the second half of the month.

Hypothetical Trading System Signals on 03-18-2026

27 System Portfolio NQ = -$6,975

Diversified Portfolio 57 (NQ Only) = -$8,675

Seven System Portfolio NQ = -$4,255

Stock Index Portfolio 37 = -$5,687.50

Stock Index Portfolio 18 = -$2,125

Two System Portfolio NQ = -$1,445

Silver Portfolio = update later

50K Portfolio (Micros) = update later (without Gold and Silver)