STOCK MARKET BEARISH -- SHORT -- CAUTION -- TURN MAY BE IMMINENT

Keybot the Quant flips to the short side yesterday before munch time at SPX 2753. It's all about the chips and retail stocks; the two main drivers of broad stock market direction currently. The caution and imminent turn flags remain out since the market price action is extremely erratic and unstable. The quant may very well flip back to the long side today depending on the semiconductors.

The bears need semi's to remain weak while sending retail stocks lower. Bears need RTH below 113 (now at 116) to create market carnage.

The bulls need the chips and copper to rally to create upside stock market strength. Bulls need SOX above 1620 (now at 1589) and CPER above 14.80 (now at 14.20). So copper needs to gain a little over +4% to help the bulls and the red metal futures are up +1.7% currently so bulls have some work to do there.

Simply watch the semiconductors that hold all the cards. It does not mater which way the broad stock market moves, all that matters is SOX 1620. Stocks may rally strongly but if the chips do not cross above this bull-bear line in the sand, equities will roll back over and die. If stocks rally and SOX 1620 is taken out, the bulls will cheer and ride to victory.

On the last trade, that only ran for a week, both the quant program and actual trading lost -3.2%. The robots are getting beaten up in the whipsaw price action. The benchmark S&P 500, the SPX Index, the United States stock market, is down -15% so far this year. The Keybot the Quant algorithm program is up +4% this year but the actual trading has now slipped negative down about a percent on the year. Keybot exits SPY and enters SDS returning to the double-leveraged ETF's. This is dangerous stuff but the robot does what it is programmed to do; a 35-day whipsaw timer expired so the quant is permitted to use 2x ETF's again (if a whipsaw would occur today the quant would drop back down into 1x ETF's again to reduce risk for another 35 days).

If the SOX moves back above 1620, and the SPX trades above 2786 trending higher, Keybot will likely whipsaw back to the long side, hence the imminent turn notation in the title line. Markets are a coin-flip and a crap-shoot each day. Keybot prints a pre-scheduled number on Friday morning shortly after the markets open.

4/26/20; 7:00 PM EST =

4/24/20; 10:00 AM EST =

4/21/20; 10:56 AM EST = -60; signal line is -51; go short 2753; (Benchmark SPX for 2020 = -14.8%)(Keybot algo this trade = -3.2%; Keybot algo for 2020 = +3.5%)(Actual trading results this trade = -3.2%; Actual trading results for 2020 = -0.7%)
4/21/20; 10:39 AM EST = -60; signal line is -51 but algorithm remains long

4/19/20; 7:00 PM EST = -44; signal line is -51

4/16/20; 9:00 AM EST = -44; signal line is -51

4/14/20; 1:53 PM EST = -44; signal line is -52; go long 2845; (Benchmark SPX for 2020 = -12.0%)(Keybot algo this trade = -1.1%; Keybot algo for 2020 = +6.7%)(Actual trading results this trade = -8.0%; Actual trading results for 2020 = +2.5%)