The point of the Focus List commentary is not to give a prediction of future market direction every day although on days were I think there is a high probability that I may be right with such a prediction I'll stick my neck out and state it. Of course I'll always include my reasons so you can learn from it or dispute it as you wish.
If future direction is hard to discern, the next step is to assess the probability of a trend day versus a consolidation day. Since you should all know how to trade either type of day this is also a valuable edge to begin the day with. If you're at that level of knowing how to recognize a trend day developing and trade accordingly then focus on learning that skill.
But sometimes I don't see anything convincing enough to feel strongly about the likely direction or magnitude of the next day. That's today. I'd go into Wednesday completely opening minded.
In the Q's and the IWM's today (Tuesday) was the narrowest range day since 9/16. The DIA haven't seen a day this narrow July. Normally this would suggest a trend day is likely if you break the day's range, but a couple of facts may get in the way of the a trend day. First the market has moved up from the lows in a very strong way as demonstrated by the fact no day has traded lower than the prior day's low, and if you look the SPY's, the magnitude of the move from the low of the move to Monday, there is not another 5 day period with a move this big UP other than the same day recovery in the Flash crash going back many years. In fact, if we consider the move on a percentage basis then the closest move of this size was the move off the 2009 lows. This make is tough to expect more upside without more of a rest or a correction, and with the strength of the move it's hard to expect a big down day before we have a day demonstrate enough weakness to at least trade below the low of the prior day.
The market watch 4 are all in major resistance areas and in a recovery phase with steep 50-day moving averages against them. This means there is still a heavy weight on the market. But the short-term trend has been very strong with positive pivots yet again. So a break of S1 is the best place to consider a bias shift to negative.
Focus List Long
SPG
TIF
LULU
WYNN
CERN
DVA
IDCC
PANL
POT
DECK
CELG
CLF
VMW
Focus List Shorts
ACOM
ANN
VRX
FCX
URBN
MCP
