February Action

February has two trading days left and has not followed through on the downside.  Trend picking managers who picked the downside trend category will have decent give back for the month but even more adaptive and certainly more successful approaches than pattern recognition may have some blow back on their big January gains.  Suspicious price action looks a bit too convenient for the bulls and may represent the unrestricted financial instrument purchases by sovereigns.  It is all part of the make up of market participation these days.  Still the battle will be to make sure first quarter lows hold.  If they do not then a severe break will unfold.

Searching for a Market Low

Looking for a bottom in markets is always a blurry view of the present. As posted here in September, markets seemed to headed to a 20% to 25% correction but whatever the ultimate low move, that low occurring in the first quarter of 2016. The sideways to higher move off the lows would then be tested probably in August. A failure of that test would take the market to the unpleasant territory of a chance of producing a 50% correction from the May 2015 highs in the S&P 500. All markets have a 50% correction at some point in their life cycle. All markets.