Continued Selling

I presumed after the strength shown on Friday that there would be a continuation today. My thoughts were that a strong close with a few indexes at or near their all time highs would carry over through at least today. This made sense to me at the time in part because I expected Friday's action would entice further participation today and I had expectations that the first two days of February might mirror those of January. Clearly this was a mistaken assumption as many indexes reversed course and erased the gain entirely. Closing at their lows shows that there was no interest of buying this dip.

My tabulation of All-Time-Highs list 193 on Friday and 52 today. There were 42 stocks up 4% in my universe to 128 down which is the second day of selling over the past 4. Two of the stocks I bought Friday made quality moves after entry only to reverse and fall back on their own weight and stopping me out even on one, and a dime away on the other. The other two closed below my purchase price. The stocks I am buying are not acting in accordance with my statistics which gives me pause. I know from my records there is a high probability of me getting stopped out on the remaining trades. When losses start stacking up there are only two places I can look: at myself, or at a market that I am not in sync with.

There are enough warning signs accumulating for me to take a disinterest in any more long purchases over the near future. My focus instead will be looking at the charts of the market moving stocks for further deterioration of their price patterns. Continued break downs will have me looking at index ETFs to short.