SPY Short Trade Set-up

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The top chart here is a 30 min chart of SPY.  The MACD is elevated as price is reaching the 191 area that I have highlighted in recent posts.  I view this level as a shorting set-up and may track some trades here based upon short term technicals and real money sentiment.

The second chart is the VIX on an hourly time frame.  The set-up here would be for the VIX to touch the lower 20 period bollinger band which would be an indication of a potential short term extreme to act upon in contrarian fashion, assuming the larger trend is down, or that a retest of the recent low will occur.  The best set-ups occur when price pushes higher but the VIX fails at least in a very minor way to continue lower as price moves higher.

The bottom chart is the total put/call ratio on an hourly time frame.  Again a move outside the lower bollinger band here would be a possible short term topping signal, though it won't necessarily mark the precise high.

Prices are set to gap up here, and in my opinion a short position at the open would be a reasonable play.  If I go in here it will likely be with SPXU and without a stop on the position.  I will wait for an opposite extreme to develop and exit or place stops when that occurs.

QQQ Short Trade Set-Up

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QQQ (Nasdaq 100) is setting up for a nice short-selling opportunity.  The move down off the Sept high made a minor shift of the price logic to down.  Now the correction back toward the highs has been slow relative to the decline keeping the price logic down.

The chart above highlights a probable rally high area in which technical sell signals could be taken for entry with a minimum target below the recent Sept. lows.

The set-up is very similar to what occurred at the spring high this year which I highlighted in this post and  in this follow-up post as the entry was completed.

In the current set-up, wait for 30 min or 60 min bearish divergence to show up on the technicals.  Then wait for a sell signal for entry.  The stop must be above the rally high.  If the high is broken the pattern is invalid and the rally may be very likely to continue.  For exit, half could be sold if the recent Sept low is broken.  Then exit the other half on a technical buy signal (i.e. MACD bullish cross from below the zero line).