Sycophants Do Not Trade

Yesterday was an incredibly boring day in the markets. Why Veterans Day is not a full market holiday I have no idea. It should be.

None of my bids got hit because the market never got to a new high. I was bidding for VIX 18 calls and SPY 176 puts. I see no indications from the overnight session that new highs can't be made. Only if the cash S&P got below 1762.48 would I be surprised.

I'd still like to see the multi-year Fibonacci extension target get hit at 1778. But if it does, market internals have a long way to go to erase the bearish divergences that are in place.

China just concluded its third plenum, a four-day closed-door meeting of the party's 205-member Central Committee, and vowed to let markets play a "decisive" role in allocating economic resources. Ironic that the world's largest communist country should be moving toward free market principles while the Land Of The Free lurches toward central-planning with Obamacare.

The former manager of the Federal Reserve's $1.25 trillion agency mortgage-backed security purchase program spoke out. It's a must read. "We were working feverishly to preserve the impression that the Fed knew what it was doing," he said.

Former Fed Quantitative Easer Confesses, Apologizes: "I Can Only Say: I'm Sorry, America"

Simple question: if they didn't know what they were doing then, how do they know what they're doing now?

This is why I keep my eye on the ball at all times rather than listen to what the pundits say. The "ball" is price and internals. The pundits are sycophants. And sycophants don't trade.