Dr. Duke's Blog

The market continues to chop back and forth, seeking direction. Trading volume was up today, but nothing like was expected for a quadruple witching Friday. Trading volume ran up 33% on NYSE, and 11% on NASDAQ, but only 3.9 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks traded, marginally up from yesterday and way below the 50 dma at 5 billion shares. The last three candlesticks on the SPX chart have been variations on the doji, the classic signal of market indecision. RUT closed up $1 at $667 and the SPX raised $1 to close at $1118. SPX has solidly held its support, but it has not pushed forward either. RUT has been unable to break through resistance at $670. RUT's settlement price is $669, so my June condor spreads will expire worthless. The July spread is well positioned with a P/L of +$1,980, delta = -$11 and theta = +$78.

So the watch continues. Will the bull market resume or will we tip over to a new bear market? Traders appear to be more and more skeptical of our economic recovery, so some poor economic news next week might have serious consequences in the stock market.