If you know anything about me you know that I can’t stand when prices are near a flat 200 day simple moving average. It’s not that I want to short stocks in those situations. I don’t want anything to do with them at all. You’re signing up for a headache, I’m telling you. Breakouts tend not to hold and breakdowns usually don’t hold either. The reason is that there is no trend when prices are near a flat 200 day moving average. Markets trend by nature, but when they’re in this particular situation, they don’t. Why would you bother with the one scenario where you know markets are not trending?
I think the S&P500 is a great example of why we want to stay away when price is near a flat 200 day. Headline writers like to make a big deal when price breaks above or below this particular smoothing mechanism, but 99% of the time they fail to mention the direction in which that moving average is heading. Is it upward sloping, downward sloping or flat? This is the more important question to ask. Not that price got above an invisible line today. [Read more…]