A Ritual Fade

The Nasdaq is flipping red as I write this, in part due to the many times AAPL (a heavily-weighted Nasdaq component) has seen bounce attempts faded in recent trading session. Despite the fact that AAPL is back to its 50-day simple moving average, there may be too many looking to play a bounce for it to stick. In addition, other marquee Nasdaq names, such as GOOG NFLX PCLN TSLA are weak again. Even FB is weak today and still threatening a rising channel breakdown. Bulls are looking for a shakeout here before a close at the highs of the day. I am keying off the 30-minute QQQ ETF chart of the Nasdaq, seen below. Note the well-defined falling price channel. A break up and out of it will likely temporarily halt the "ritual fade" pattern we have seen of late. Also note the RSX back in the red and punishing bottom-callers, at least those who chased the highs today. Indeed, there is still a premium being placed on patience and discipline in this market.