These final two weeks of the year, especially this year the way Christmas and New Years magically fall on Wednesday's (maximizing the break), are notably the lowest volume weeks of the year.
There's an old saying in trading, "If you're trading the 52nd week of the year, ya didn't make enough the first 51!" I'm not sure if that's really a saying but that's what the older traders would say to me & Bennett the first week of January after we were the only ones in the office over the holiday LOL.
That saying changes to 'the first 50 weeks' this year due to the holiday getting stretched to two full weeks, so any trades you take over the next two weeks, keep it lighter as volume isn't on your side. The lighter volume in the market, the higher propensity of seeing fake-out moves driven by 'day trader volume,' so it's usually an easy time to get chopped up if you're over-trading.
From an overall market outlook, the trend is still in tact. We are a bit overbought which makes putting on new risk tough, but the S&P is still healthily riding the 8 day moving average higher, and going sideways when it needs digestion -- and not pulling back forthat digestion. There is a big difference in that, and it leads me to believe, almost unbelievably, that we continue moving higher. Everything changes if we see some extreme selling, but again, we've ONLY seen the indices move sideways when they've needed digestion.
Seasonally, January is usually weak for stocks so I wouldn't be surprised to see the rally continue into year end, and then getting that next pullback early in the new year. A big "we'll see" though. I have most likely put on my last trades for the new year and will just be managing swings the next couple weeks.
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