Watch Leading Sectors

Around the time of big events and announcements in the market, the best thing to do is not watch the indexes, but watch the leading sectors to see how they're positioned. My preference is to watch financials and real estate, because they have been the secular bear market leaders for the last few years.

For instance, we see today that financials and real estate are both well below the highs made a few days ago, whereas the market is near its near-term high. This is the kind of divergence that makes the bullish case weaker and should bring bears some comfort. This does not mean the bearish case is solid, though. It only sheds light on what is going on behind the scenes and provides clues. You should expect the next few days to be a lot of noise and popped stops on the indexes for both bulls and bears (but probably more bear stops taken out). The real story is happening in individual sectors like real estate and financials. I've found this helps me to not get "tricked" by the market makers.