Thoughts {01.12.16}

I'm working on something a bit longer that will cover what I think is happening in the markets and I hope to have out later in the week so this post is going to be brief.  Markets are poised to turn around at least on the open today.  We are oversold now and the markets are close to certain levels of support that the probability of a reflex bounce here is higher than anytime in this month.  We still have an options expiration at the end of this week to contend with so volatility likely is only taking a breather.

How bad has it been?  Well the S&P 500 is down around 9% since the beginning of December.  Most of that has been tacked on though since the last few days of 2015.  The S&P 500 lost nearly 2% in the last two trading sessions of 2015.  It is down about 6% this year {not including the likely bounce we'll see at the open today.  

The S&P 500 is down slightly over 10% from highs set last May as of yesterday.  We are again trading back at levels first seen in June 2014.  Depending on how you want to define it the market has traded in a 12-18% since the summer of 2014.

Hopefully back with something longer in the next couple of days.

*Long ETFs related to the S&P 500 in client and personal accounts.  Although positions can change at any time.