Trading the pre-Christmas panic

What should traders make of the pre-Christmas panic today? S&P 500 futures were down as much as -2.5% overnight. The market opened up down about -1.5%, but recovered most of its losses to a -0.4% retreat today. More importantly, the bulls were able to hold support at 3650.

The VIX Index surged above its upper Bollinger Band, which is a sign of an oversold market. In the past year, most of the similar instances saw the market either rise or stabilize after VIX upper BB readings (blue vertical lines). The only exception occurred in February, when the market cratered as the news of the pandemic spooked risk appetite (red line). On the other hand, the 5-day RSI (top panel) is nowhere near an oversold condition.

The full post can be found here.