Commentary
The S&P 500 (SPY) joined the Nasdaq and PowerShares QQQ ETF (QQQ) by closing above its 50-day moving average (DMA). The move was not nearly as dramatic as the previous day’s tech bumrush, but it is still significant as the stock market continues to heal from the recent oversold episodes. The S&P 500 did not achieve the milestone easily: after the index gapped up, sellers stepped in with just enough force to fill the gap and dip the index into negative territory. I decided to sell my SPY call options after buyers first failed to push SPY over the 50DMA hump. Buyers smelled the opportunity when SPY went read and led the charge to close the index above its 50DMA with a 1.2% gain.

Buyers and sellers fought until the bulls won the case with a 50DMA breakout for the S&P 500 (SPY).

AT40 (T2108), the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40DMAs, confirmed the resurgent bullishness by crossing above the 30% mark and closing at 31.6%. This is the first step in leaving oversold conditions (below 20%) in the rearview mirror.

The volatility index, the VIX, on the other hand did not follow-through on the previous day’s deep pullback. The VIX ended the day near flat after ranging between 17.60 and 20.66. After watching this back and forth, I decided to lock in my profits on my short iPath S&P 500 VIX ST Futures ETN (VXX) position in the after hours. I am primed to fade the next VIX rally.

The downward trajectory for the volatility index, the VIX, came to a screeching halt – the pause that refreshes or the breather before resuming the race back to normalcy?

CHART REVIEWS

Align Technology (ALGN)
ALGN is the kind of stock I am looking to trade at this juncture: strong uptrends going into the correction and a breakout above support turned resistance. Of course stocks that never broke support and turned it into resistance are even better. I bought a call option on ALGN.