Thursday, October 15, 2009

Stock Market Getting Complacent, Overly-Optimistic per the VIX



I wanted to wait for all the late orders to come in so we can get an accurate breadth count on the NYSE and Nasdaq today. And now we have them. Advancers and decliners were practically up volume was barely higher than down volume. All-in-all, it was practically a divided and flat day, yet the Dow and S&P were solidly higher. Not much of a follow-through "at-a-boy" rally for the stock market after Intel posted great earnings spurring yesterday's big rally. The Nasdaq Composite on the other hand was solidly bearish internally today as you can see from the above chart on the top right. Quite a bit of profit taking in the tech sector that started the rally from Intel yesterday. The XLF, financials ETF, was down today after soaring over 3% yesterday, again offering no follow-through.

On top of all this waning momentum evidence we have the VIX, which made a new low on the year at 21.49. This should worry the bulls because it shows a high level of complacency and over-optimism in the market right now. There's no fear or skepticism in the market, and that's a recipe for a top.

There's no way of telling right now if the market has made a top, and in fact there's no real signs of it. But there is signs that top is forming at some degree as upside seems limited from here.

No comments:

StatCounter