8-14-2012 Close

We barely missed some negative sell signals today. The NASDAQ missed having a distribution day because we were not quite down 0.2%. We almost had a down-side reversal (S11 sell signal) but we didn't quite close in the bottom quarter of today's range.

I continue to be amazed at how light trading volume is. With volume continuting to run lighter than the last decade investors must have left the playing field. Over the last decade we have had added volume to the market from HFT and ETFs. ETFs cause double counting, once for buying and selling ETF shares and twice for buying the underlying stocks in the ETF index. With all of this add on volume over the last decade the true intermediate and long term investor interest must be very slight. Volume lightened up in the 1974 bear market bottom zone. This is a close as I can come to finding a similar period within a secular bear market. Volume built after 1974 until the upside breakout in 1982 secular bull market.

My portfolio is KORS, TFM and SSYS. I wish I were in NSM, ELLI and MLNX.

The action of leading stocks has been weak in my opinion but has improved a bit. The distribution count on the NASDAQ is 2, a long way from worrisome levels.