Safety in a Tough Neighborhood is an Illusion

As the market sell-off continues to play out, more and more seemingly "safe" stocks now look like sitting ducks on the short side. Stocks like GIS K KO, even MCD PEP, are getting drilled today along with stocks. True, on a relative basis they may not stage GPRO-like carnage. 

But losses are losses, and the idea is to not "hold and hope" in a powerful downtrending market, as I suspect many are doing right now. 

Another critical topic, of course, is crude oil, given the apparently intimate relationship with risk and equities of late. Note that the crude oil inventory report this week is actually on Thursday, at 11am EST, due to the MLK Day holiday we had on Monday. 

On the updated USO ETF daily chart, below, crude continues to slide along its lower Bollinger Band. So, it is tough to argue that crude is textbook washing out, just yet. Once again, the more textbook setup would be to see a day or two of an outright crash from here, setting up the "buy the blood" scenario. 

For now, the grind lower is picking up steam, but headed into the afternoon of trading we may not be at the full-blown panic phase, just yet. 

I will cover those topics, including strategy, ideas, and chart requests, for Members in my usual Midday Video.