Commentary:

Stocks fell hard on Friday closing at both the session and weekly lows. The market fell under severe selling pressure for most of the day before showing some signs of life at 2:00 pm. However, the afternoon recovery was short lived as stocks sold off sharply into the close. The selling was broad based and resulted in all five major indices ending the day lower by over 1%. The small-cap Russell 2000 led the move lower by shedding 1.6%. The Nasdaq and the S&P MidCap 400 both fell 1.5% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 slid 1.4% each.

Market internals were unquestionably bearish on Friday. Volume rose across the board. Turnover expanded by 17% on the Nasdaq and by 13.3% on the NYSE. Declining volume overpowered advancing volume by a factor of 5.2 to 1 on the NYSE and 5.8 to 1 on the Nasdaq. The relentless nature of the selling accompanied by the expansion in volume clearly suggests institutional participation in Friday’s plunge. Consequently we would classify the session as a distribution day for the market.

On Friday we covered our short position in DBB and sold our long position in EEV locking in solid gains for both trades. We exited both trades as we felt it was wise to lock in gains into weakness. Also on Friday, we shorted TUR as this watchlist candidate hit its entry trigger. For our subscribing members details for each of these trades are available in the open positions section of the newsletter.

The iShares US Financial Sector Index ETF (IYF) has been under enormous selling pressure since early February. Yesterday, on a large expansion in volume this ETF undercut a two year support level and quickly returned to the previous day’s trading range. This price action resulted in the formation of a reversal candle as IYF closed in the top third of its intraday trading range. Although we have no interest in going long IYF, Friday may have marked a short term bottom for this ETF. IYF may present a shorting opportunity with a bounce back into resistance at the 20-day and 200-day moving average.

On Friday the iShares MSCI Indonesia Investable Market ETF (EIDO) gapped down sharply and closed below its trendline for the first time in six months. The sudden break of the trendline suggests that EIDO may be falling victim to overall market weakness. A move back below Friday’s low of $30.88 may present a shorting opportunity in this ETF. Irrespective of EIDO’s overall relative strength, it may still be drug down by the relentless selling pressure in the broad market. This setup provides a potential example of why it is unwise to fight the broad market trend.

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Today’s Watchlist:

There are no new official setups this morning. We will send an Intraday Alert if any new trades are made.

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Daily Performance Report:

Below is an overview of all open positions, as well as a performance report on all positions that were closed only since the previous day’s newsletter. Net P/L figures are based on the $50,000 Wagner Daily model account size. Changes to open positions since the previous report are listed in red text below. Please review the Wagner Daily Subscriber Guide for important, automatic rules on trigger and stop prices

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Notes:

• Per intraday alert, we took profits in EEV and DBB. TUR short setup triggered off the watchlist.
• Reminder to subscribers – Intraday Trade Alerts to your e-mail and/or mobile phone are normally only sent to indicate a CHANGE to the pre-market plan that is detailed in each morning’s Wagner Daily. We sometimes send a courtesy alert just to confirm action that was already detailed in the pre-market newsletter, but this is not always the case. If no alert is received to the contrary, one should always assume we’re honoring all stops and trigger prices listed in each morning’s Wagner Daily. But whenever CHANGES to the pre-market stops or trigger prices are necessary, alerts are sent on an AS-NEEDED basis. Just a reminder of the purpose of Intraday Trade Alerts.
• For those of you whose ISPs occasionally deliver your e-mail with a delay, make sure you’re signed up to receive our free text message alerts sent to your mobile phone. This provides a great way to have redundancy on all Intraday Trade Alerts. Send your request to support@morpheustrading.com if not already set up for this value-added feature we provide to subscribers.

Edited by Deron Wagner,
MTG Founder and
Head Trader