A little tough talk between a few enemies along with a string of bad earnings announcements sent the markets lower this week. This sort of move is one that will always make headlines. Not so much because of the magnitude of the pullback (around 2% on the S&P), but because everyone wants to know whether they should expect more downside or is this a buying opportunity.
Technical traders trade on events as they happen and fundamental traders make decisions on things that have already happened. From a fundamental perspective as well as a technical perspective this time feels a little different.
From a fundamental side you have almost a full week where earnings from big names disappointed. From Disney (NYSE: DIS), Macy's (NYSE: M), and more we saw results that were not as exciting as we have seen in weeks past. So, what is the fundamental trader to do? Where do they put there money if things aren't looking so rosy?
Technical traders are also on alert. Going back to Monday they saw a fresh breakout to new highs on the S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) get completely erased in the same day. There are many names for such an event but when this happens in an uptrend it is a sign that not everything is as strong as others think. Now the short term trader may look to take advantage of a short, which we have seen this week, but the long term trader is not likely to respond just yet. A technical trader is always looking for support or resistance. On the SPY, Thursday's move ended right on the uptrend line. Though the day was quite weak, the weakness stopped right at support. Think of this as the most important area for now. Breaking under this will cause many technical traders to close out long positions, and new short traders to enter long.