Masquerading Market

This market has been masquerading as various beasts for a while now, be it the horrifyingly epic December market on the cusp of a 1929-style crash, or the one-way drift we have seen of late on the indices even if the action below the surface remains mixed.

To be sure, seeing the indices up again this morning, led by the Dow considerably outperforming Nasdaq names, has got to give bulls continued relief that the worst is over. And even with Netflix coming in after earnings, and Tesla down sharply (stopping me out of a swing long) on job-cutting moves, not to mention TEAM well off its overnight highs post-earnings, bulls have yet to be rattled. 

But I am growing more cautious by the day, not necessarily as far as stepping in to time the top of this bounce. Instead, the randomness of the action has me on the sideline until after MLK Jr. Day, which closes markets on Monday. 

As you can see on the updated SPY daily chart, below, which is the ETF for the S&P 500 Index, we are back inside last autumn broken range, and back above the 50-day moving averages. However, this may also be the perfect spot for selling to resume, since all of those trapped longs from early-December are just now being made whole and could easily sell to break-even. 

The market may very well continue to masquerade as drifting, V-shape bull rally, but I want to see more energetic buying in growth stocks to really get behind it again with any sort of conviction.