E-Mini S&P 500 Futures Contract Technical Analysis: Bears blew a chance to sack stocks yesterday when the Bad Guys reversed a 137 point plunge in the early going to close the Dow off a measly 42 points. Recently, it’s seemed all too easy for DaBoyz to manipulate the broad averages so that they almost never experience three down days in a row.  One way they do this is to pull their bids overnight and let stocks fall on gaseous volume. The effect is to dry up sellers so that stocks can be short-squeezed to new highs without much effort or bullish buying. However, we should infer that this little trick is getting old when it takes a 137-point drop to set the trap. Moreover, although shorts remain as easy to spook as a sorority girl at a sceance, they weren’t so panicky yesterday that stocks were able to close up on the day.

One trader who re-shorted the E-Mini S&P yesterday after getting bucked off the horse by Friday’s strong rally suggested that the only thing keeping stocks aloft right now is end-of-month portfolio-squaring. This explanation feels right to me, but we won’t know for sure until October is under way.  In the meantime, I’d recommend cautious shorting that follows our Hidden Pivot rules. Generally speaking, this means initiating shorts in this vehicle at minor rally targets whenever entry risk can be held to a theoretical five ticks or less.