Where’s my rally!?!

Comments:

1. Maybe too many folks thought that rally was gonna happen... And now they've all decided we're going to trade in a range off recent extremes-- but with the VIX stabilizing at nose bleed altitudes I wouldn't be so sure... Today the SPX plummeted through too many recent support and ma levels to count but it did more or less come to a rest at 61.8 retracement... That, plus the fact that everyone I know is completely white knuckle terrified hints a decent little rally is still in the cards..? ... ..? I'm "hoping" so, because there's not much room between here and the abyss.      by dave
   
2. I know I was anticipating it --- maybe that was what we saw on Tuesday... a rally in anticipation of a rally, and then everybody trying to "sell into" the rally that never happened.
   
   Guys (and gals), I don't know what I'm going to do when (if?) the market returns to "normal." In fact, I really don't know what normal is... I have learned to trade in this environment. I read books that describe a stock's movement over the course of months, and I have to double-check the time periods, which appear GLACIAL to me.
   
   A stock's price went from $57 to $53.50 over the course of a MONTH?
   
   That's not a month, that's a lunch hour.
   
   So I really don't know what I'm going to have to "unlearn" to adjust to markets that don't move so violently. When I started jumping in to do this "for real" (before I'd just read some books), I realized we were moving into a bear market (this was back in January), and I thought, "Oh, well, if I can learn in this kind of environment, then I should be a money-making MACHINE when it goes bullish again, right?"
   
   I'm not so sure, now. I don't know what kind of bad habits I may be picking up now that are going to serve me poorly when things get a little more boring, and we don't have mergers and bankruptcies and bailouts of some of the biggest fixtures of American and foreign industry in the news every week, and the Fed changing the rules of the game every other month.
   
   So have I been learning in a market that's just accelerated and bearish and on steroids, or is this fundamentally a different beast? What am I going to have to re-learn (not that I've become an expert or anything... I'm just somehow managing to keep my head above water most of the time...)      by Coyote
   
3. It's called, "Welcome to the real world, Mr. Obama."
   
   The short-term trick will be to see if we can break resistance.
   
   Overall, news is bad, earnings bad, job losses to continue, housing is in a slow-cooker and needs time... Should be interesting.
   
   I'm going to start day-trading /ES. I'm trying to start sleeping at night.      by Roger The Trader
   
4. Pretty good follow thru to the downside today. I keep expecting a bounce but I'm trading the charts and not what I would expect.
   
   Coyote - You're very smart to be concerned about what bad habits you might be learning. One of the worst things that can happen is to make money from something you shouldn't have. Then you hold onto to that "lesson" well past the profit it initially generated. Great observation!
   
   Mojo      by Mojo
   
5. Anyone selling GM puts? I mean, this is Insane Money, right?
   
   
   
   ...I can see it now, the final act of the Bush legacy; letting GM go down in flames.... And while I wouldn't rule it out I'll take any 12 day bet with those odds, so what if ya lose; how can it not be the right thing to do?      by dave