Operation: Live to Fight Another Day

In markets like these, with daily whipsaws, head-fakes, and now some more deterioration as the selling spreads to even sectors which were exuding relative strength of late (consumer names, energy), we must always return to a basing tenet of speculation, which is: Loss of opportunity is not nearly as damning as loss of capital. Never forget, Operation: Live to Fight Another Day.

As a result, keeping overall or net exposure to the market light is of the utmost importance. Beyond that, resisting the urge to declare that tech stocks, which are now taking another sound beating in the QQQ, have bottomed is also important. 

That said, we still want to track names not getting completely wrecked. CXW, for example, is a private prison play which is acting suspiciously strong here.

And, naturally, as Hurricane Michael approaches the Florida panhandle we have those standard hurricane plays like GNRC (generators) and ENR (batteries) both green and sporting solid charts. 

But, again, when we look at liquid tech growth plays like SHOP and SQ being sold as aggressively as they have been and are this morning, it compels us to stay in a fairly defensive shell until conditions improve.

Indeed, living to fight another day is a mindset worth having in general, and worth having now.