There you go.
I wrote that headline to save you the trouble of turning on your TV or following your favorite fear mongerer online. You’re welcome.
Unless you’ve been lost in the wilderness for the last two weeks (not a bad place to have been, btw), then you no doubt know the bulls are currently in trouble.
The fake-out breakout in the Russell 2000 $IWM has turned into a full-blown route, the S&P 500 is testing levels last seen at the end of September and early October, and $VIX has printed the highest levels of the year. There’s not a lot to be optimistic about right now — especially if you’re holding a bunch of long positions that are at or near stop-out levels like I am.
I got stopped out of a bunch of positions last week, two today (a long call spread in $STX and a short strangle in $XLK), and a couple more might get exited tomorrow if things don’t stabilize here.
Into this maelstrom, we’ve been dialing back putting on new positions. During last week’s holiday-shortened trading week, we only put one new position on — and that may have been one too many 😉 [Read more…]