You Better Hold That Trigger in This Battle

In this type of market environment, simply seeing some intraday strength is insufficient to declare a true breakout, as many traders are finding out. 

GOOGL, for example, is a marquee leader in the Nasdaq and a name many have been cheering on with each intraday pop, only to be quickly silenced when sellers present themselves at the $558 level we have been observing for a while now.

On the second daily chart, below, note the significance of $558 as being the top rail of the highlighted pennant. Overall, GOOGL remains a leader with a choppy, sloppy chart and has been consolidating for several quarters now. 

In addition, FB failed to hold over $82 after breaking over it to much fanfare yesterday. Here, again, we have another marquee leader which still may breakout anyway. 

But in this type of market holding the trigger is more important than cracking it. 

Into the final ninety minutes of trading today before a jobs number tomorrow morning, I am focused on select shorting vulnerable individual issues, and managing my open positions tightly.