Pretty much standard operating procedure. Anything with a ticker is being bought in the mother of all squeezes that is now 145pts off the recent lows while those looking for 950 found themselves in a nice little BearTrap.

How many times has the S&P parked right up to resistance then gap over it by the start of trading the next day? For many months now the bulk of the markets gains have been outside of normal trading hours (I pity the fool who can't trade futures, else you are getting front-run day in and day out). Today we saw pretty much the same thing that's been going on the last 4 weeks in that the TICK is not supportive of the market action, well not until it reads oversold (while the market grinds higher) then the algos start lifting any and all bids for the rest of the day.

This tight range in volume has been consistent for about 4 weeks now, with 50% of the daily volume transacting within 1 point on the ES (S&P Futures). Strange Brew

As expected, Oil continues to out-perform while gold is pretty much standing still. It has recently broke out of it's trading range and is targeting $92, but is currently at resistance near $87.50. I would expect a pullback near here to around $84-$85 area. In the event of an actual recovery (both home and abroad) it's clear which two of the asset classes will outperform. However there is so much supply waiting to hit the market it's tough to get behind a bull run in oil, just yet. In fact, someone I know, who works at XOM, talks about how slow things are and the amount of crude sitting idle at the refineries and diesel production. That being said, it's doubtful this out-performance can continue not to mention how damaging it could be to an actual recovery.

Speaking of XOM, it has been in a downtrend ever since the acquisition of XTO and continues to be a bearish price structure in which 68.50 (150d xma), $70 and $72 (unfilled gap) will be resistance. If it's able to take out 68.50 then it should be a clear path to 70. Bottom-line: This is still a bearish chart with multiple downward-sloping moving averages just above it. Keep an eye on this and other index Heavyweights going forward. Any breakout in this stock and it's going to pull the entire energy complex (and likely the market) with it.

Even as commodities surge, the retail stocks continue to be the "must-have" as people camp out for their iPads. Seems logical...(right). The XRT is right near the 42.50/43 upside-resistance mentioned here. If there is a full-blown reflation trade that kicks off it will be at the expense of this sector, imho.

Video Link Here

This is from yesterday's closing. I'm just noting it took 14 calendar days the last time this indicator peaked before the market gave back ground. Coincidentally it has 14 days as of yesterday's close since it's peaked. The more it grinds sideways/higher, the more the indicators work off their overbought levels. At this very point in the market, given some of the strange trading conditions the past 4 weeks, it's hard to assign a high level confidence in it's predictability so take it with a grain of salt. Although next week the Fed needs to sell $185B in toilet paper, so a shank down should net Goldman enough profit to walk into the futures pit on any correction of 5%. Could it be the usual once per quarter Shank-For-Treasuries (tm) ? See: FOIA: Obama/Bernanke Video

Before you know it Ben Bubbles Bernake will announce a QEv2.0 just as soon as interest rates creep higher. Currencies are setting up for interesting moves. Does the reflation trade go from mini-size to full-throttle, launching the S&P up near 2,048 by month's end? Or does the euro break down to 1.30 flat and shank the market down 5%, sending people to gobble up the $185B in bonds?

Good luck whichever way you chose, brave soul. Unless you have some good inside info (ie: you're goldman) you probably should just bet on the basketball games; it's the same odds.