CLOSING BELL THOUGHTS

The markets managed an end of day buying spree although not quite enough to bring them back to the Pivots or the unchanged lines; but nevertheless well off their lows.

A look at the SPX chart shows that over the last 14 days we have been stuck in a tight trading range between 1260 (bought for me) and 1280 (sold to you). The QQQQ also trades in a tight range and doesn't seem to want to stay under the $36.25 level; of course $37.25 also seems to be the top of the range.

It seems like the dog days of summer have caused the VIX/VXO tandem to remain depressed in spite of lower equity prices which is not helping with any SPX buy signals.

The NAZ volatility indexes, VXN/QQV act even worse as they are considerably below their 10 day SMA's in spite of the relative underperformance of the NAZ/QQQQ.

My overbought/oversold breath indicators are giving pretty good buy signals as they are as oversold as they have been since mid July.

I bought some SMH today, which was down 3.5%, and anticipate a bounce early next week in tech and the overall markets.

On a final note, Greg Valliere, the often interviewed CNBC guest, tells Maria that if the Republicans lose the House in November, investors will not want to own Pharma stocks. Have the pharmas ever done worse in any six year period than they have under W?