It's Not a Real Rally Until Things Get a Bit Trashy

Bulls were able to absorb a few vicious body shots this week from bears and are now threatening to turn the tables on those with an ursine bias as we speak. At the moment, the Nasdaq is pushing multi-week highs and a fade attempt about an hour morphed into a larger intraday base. 

Headed into the heart of the afternoon session, I am looking to see whether the $162 area on the QQQ ETF for the top Nasdaq stocks now holds as newfound support. If that is the case then I suspect bears will grow a bit panicky into the bell and be forced to cover some of their inventory in fears of a runway move higher.

Bears will counter that large banks tomorrow morning kick off a new earnings season, namely C JPM WFC, all three of which bears are betting will dampen the bull fervor once again. 

However, now we have biotech joining the general tech party today, as it was becoming rather obvious that many software plays were acting fantastically in the face of this market volatility and correction. We also have the VIX coming in a bit more than it has of late, back into the teens. 

While the final hours of today's session are critical for bulls to hang onto the lion's share of this rally, I am also gauging whether some of the real beaten-down play can participate. If so, then it could easily be a sign of shorts growing panicky and longs feeling even more emboldened take on some more risk.

We know GoPro is up nicely today, but also keep an eye on Pandora, seemingly cast aside in light of its poor chart and the recent Spotify IPO.

If Pandora can clear the $5.47-$5.55 resistance area above anytime soon I would be willing to consider a long play for a surprise squeeze in what is still a very heavily-shorted and hated name.