Leaders Index 9-22-14

It was an ugly day today. The major averages opened lower and sold off the rest of the day. A little late strength allowed them to close off their intraday lows, but all the major averages finished near their intraday lows. The COMPQ led the way down with a loss of 1.14% while the SPY was off by .80%. Volume was lower than Friday, as would be expected on the day after an expiration, but it was still above average across the board. There was no official distribution, but it sure looked like large players were selling stocks. The small caps took the worst of it with the RUT lower by 1.53% as it looked like market participants were moving to the relative safety of defensive names. Leading stocks got hit worse than the overall market with the leaders index dropping 2.21% on fairly light volume. The new index is now sitting right on it’s 17dma. It must hold this support level and move higher or the market is in real trouble. Late cycle rallies are usually difficult to make any real progress in and this one is tougher than most. I guess you could try some small positions here, but having most of your capital safely on the sidelines right now is probably a good idea. Jerry