Some of the timing systems flipped to the long side after yesterday’s buying panic, so I added some long positions accordingly. Nasty whipsaw, hope the others don’t follow with even nastier whipsaws. Now in the situation where either long or short position is likely to close with a loss (although not necessarily). Don’t like it, but I didn’t want to close the put option positions after volatility (VIX) collapsed yesterday.

However, most of the longs that I added were Metals and Mining - specifically Goldcorp (GG) and Pan-American Silver (PAAS). The precious metals should benefit from the weakness in the dollar. The rest were some Proshares Ultra QQQ (QLD) - a new leveraged ETF that moves twice the change in the Nasdaq-100 index.

Looking at the charts, we’re still in the oversold zone in terms of measures such as the Bullish Percentage Index (BPI) and Price Momentum (PMO). This worried me before yesterday’s rally and still does, in terms of my short position. On the other hand, the fundamentals continue to deteriorate. The Chicago Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) came in lower than expected today, around 56, showing a very high “prices paid” index. That says slow growth and inflation, neither particularly happy numbers for the stock market.