Never short a dull market By Kevin Marder
Activity quiets down on the New York Stock Exchange, as shares settle into their two-week range.
Wednesday's high-low spread in the futures was the second-narrowest in the last 10 sessions. Price closes in the upper portion of each day's travel range recently.
The chart below shows the vaults of Dec. 31 and Jan. 2, and their aftermath. The fact that price has scarcely dipped since then objectively says that
institutions are not selling into this rally. For the most part, they are
content to sit on positions and are not interested in locking in profits.
All of this adds up to a market that wants to go higher.
If this was the end of a bull market, the Dec. 31-Jan. 2 move would have been used as an opportunity to dump positions. Institutions begin to sell into a rising market which provides the demand for the shares they need to off.
Of course, this could begin to change tomorrow. But for most speculators and shorter-term traders, it is best to stay in synch with the trend — i.e. what the market has already done — and not try to predict when that will turn. And at this moment
the trend is up. It is to be noted that volatility is mean-reverting. In theory, this means it will go from one extreme to something closer to an average. In reality, volatility will often overshoot the average and go to the opposite extreme. As the above S&P chart shows, the extreme of two wide-range days yielded to the opposite extreme, a series of very-narrow range bars.
Thus, the current low-volatility action is expected to yield to something more dynamic. Because most consolidation periods, which is what the averages are currently in, tend to result in
upward revaluation, this is a likely prospect.
Volatility tends to be high early in a bull and late in a bull. This is true not only for the averages but also for individual issues. The end of a bull market is normally characterized by choppy, back-and-forth activity. Big swings that do not produce much upward price progress.
This has yet to be seen. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/never- ... lcountdown
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