The Great Wall of Headlines

The ongoing sensitivity to the U.S./China trade war discussions is back on full display this morning, with an opening gap lower undoing the last few days of bouncing on some of the major indices. While the Dow, S&P, Nasdaq, and small caps are all above last Thursday's lows as I write this, it would behoove bulls to step back in sooner than later, lest bears feel emboldened to push for a major breakdown on the small caps and open the floodgates for a drop down to the December 2018 lows. 

In the meantime, precious miners are enjoying a safe haven bid alongside the Dollar and Treasuries. 

Yamana Gold, for example, below on it daily chart, looks like a standard, bullish consolidation in light of its prior rally. AUY is one of the soother precious miner charts at the moment with respect to the relatively tight price range the consolidation has been operating in since early-August. 

Elsewhere, as one of our Members astutely noted, the dollar store stocks, DG DLTR, are acting well. While we may not be headed towards a full-blown recession, it seems like those stocks stand to benefit from any type of economic slowdown. 

Overall, bulls continue to run into trouble each time they try to scale the market's great wall of China headlines. Even if a satisfying trade deal is not imminent or even in the near future, in order for this market to act better and hang onto gains we must see a certain degree of acceptance of this ongoing uncertainty.