The shift from bullish to bearish since January 26th has been delightfully insidious. Monday's market action created some more progress for the bears, although the breaks of February 9th lows were not across the board. Indeed, looking at some of the big indexes, you can see that we’re getting to the point of “challenging” those important lows, but not yet piercing them:
S&P 500 Chart:
Nasdaq 100 Chart:
NASDAQ Composite Chart:
Dow Jones Composite Chart:
In some important instances, however, we did break those lows (albeit by the slimmest of margins).
Dow Jones Industrials Chart:
S&P 100 Chart:
ARCA Major Markets Chart:
I find that last chart particularly interesting. It’s a terribly well-formed top, and it’s a nice, broad index.
For myself, I remain cheerfully short, with 76 positions. Only three of these are ETFs – iShares US Real Estate (NYSE:IYR), Utilities Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLU), and PowerShares DB Commodity Tracking (NYSE:DBC). My greatest concentration is definitely in the realm of real estate, and I have lately been keeping a very aggressive posture of about 250% margin.