Blue Monday

A Blue Monday, for sure. So much for the positive tone of Friday's 30 minute bars. The Qs were in a downdraft from the get go and never looked back. I was encouraged about 12:30ish when it looked like S2 wasn't going to get hit. With the overall market weakness it should have been a forgone conclusion. And the breakout at 15:00 might have also been encouraging, except there was no volume to drive it. That being the case, I was not surprised to see a fade into the close, although I had not anticipated the virulence and volume of the action. Since the first few trading days of the new year are historically very positive, I was looking to put on a modest long position. I ended up selling OTM near puts at 15:45 and .02 off the close. The only positive thing about the close was that the Qs didn't violate S2. As in similar instances last week, I suspect that if more big traders had been active the close would have been well below S2.

Let's see what fun and games the new year brings.

Good luck all around.

BTW, earnings are upon us and here's a great set of articles from the Stockbee to help you navigate the perils and opportunities this time around. Definitely worth a look if you like to play the game.