The Market Wrangles Crocodiles

Wrangler has multiple meanings.

The definitions range from one who is in charge of animals to one who engages in lengthy and complicated quarrels.

Bluejeans and Jeeps use “wrangler” to connote durability.

Which definition describes the market action?

Supervisory, quarrelsome or durable?

Sister Semiconductors, in her recent supervisory role, today gave back the last four days of gains in one full swoop.

Since SMH led the pack, as a wrangler does, perhaps the other part of a wrangler’s job-cleaning up poop-finally got to her.

No surprise then that her fatigue led to a quarrelsome Modern Family.

Can a tired supervisor and quarrelsome siblings maintain the market’s durability?

Last night I asked, “Will the steel endure the rust or will the rust decay the steel?”

The intention of that question was to examine the naggingly enduring dichotomy between the weakening sectors that measure the true economy versus the Nasdaq tech rally.

Can we now conclude that the rust has decayed the steel?

Today, I woke up to read analysts putting out “buy” recommendations in Amazon and Facebook.

Buy recommendations after historic moves can often mean the kabosh on the rally. At the risk of sounding cynical, those buy recs worked out for about a minute.

With strong topping reversal candles in both stocks, we could see a 5-9% correction from the apex.

How about those dotted lines depicting the 50 daily moving averages in the Modern Family?

Yesterday, 3 of the 6 sectors were below the dotted line.

Today, Retail tested levels not seen since the day after the election. For now, 40.52 (November 9th low) held. Caveat emptor however. On November 9th, XRT closed on the intraday high to begin a substantial rally.

Today, XRT closed below mid-range. Only a move over 42.00 and today’s high will provide a cane for the limping Granny.

Furthermore, now 4 and counting, the Russell 2000 joined Retail XRT, Regional Banks KRE and Transportation IYT under the 50-DMA.