My Trading Journal for the Stock Market Today:

To say the market is trending higher, is an understatement. The stock market has been on a tear for most of this month. It is up 8 out of the last 9 trading sessions. Even more so, the market has only had two days where it finished in the red – extremely impressive. That is 11 out of 13 days so far this month. 

Yes, continue riding this market higher as long as it allows. There are plenty of concerning aspects, not in the bit, is the fact that Dennis Gartman is uber-bullish on this market (as of last week) and we all know that is the kiss of death for this market. Furthermore, and more importantly is SPX is sporting a lot of bearish divergences across multiple indicators, with my favorite one being of course the T2108 Indicator provided by TC2000, which measures the % of stocks trading above their 40-day moving average. This indicator seriously lags the entire market’s consistent closes at new all-time highs with only 64% trading above their 40-day MA. 

I’m waiting for the 5-day moving average to start showing some cracks – so far that hasn’t happened…yet. Once that happens, that is a good reason to start really tightening those stop-losses (if you haven’t done so yet) or curbing your long exposure some. But getting net short at this juncture doesn’t make much sense at all, until we at least start to see some weakness trickle in. I’m fine with some short exposure, but getting net short right now, doesn’t work for me. 

As it stands now, I am continuing to tighten my stops on my core long positions. I want them to keep rising for as long as the market will allow for it, but I am not going to leave myself exposed to a large sell-off either. I have pretty much increased the stops in all of my current positions in the portfolio and plan to do so again on Tuesday too. 

S&P 500 Chart

Current Stock Trading Portfolio Balance: 

• 5 long positions, 1 short position

Recent Stock Trade Closeouts:

• Gold Miners ETF (GDX): Long at $25.22, closed at $25.04 for a -0.7% loss. 
• Corning (GLW): Long at $26.98, closed at $27.45 for a 1.7% profit. 
• Illinois Tool Works (ITW): Long at $127.74, closed at $129.86 for a 1.7% profit. 
• Marriott Int’l (MAR): Long at $86.16, closed at $87.51 for a 1.6% profit. 
• Microsoft (MSFT): Long at $63.45, closed at $64.09 for a 1% profit.