Market Wrap (recording & summary)

Having conditioned the morning crowd not to buy, Pavlov may be on to something more sinister by leaving the cage door open to buy in the afternoon. One headline I saw, which I try not to see lest they be an influence, called Friday a “massive short-squeeze.” I don’t dispute that Friday’s ultimate resolution was up. But Friday’s similarity to a short-squeeze pretty much begins and ends there.

Ranging 47 points from low-to-high is wide, but less than 25% of it was in positive territory. And that was thanks to the last half-hour’s breakout to fresh session highs, after having fluctuated around unchanged since noon.

Now, it’s true that I did label that late breakout as a sort of short-squeeze, but certainly not the entire session. And then, only to label its sponsorship as being earlier shorts that were reducing exposure into the weekend’s illquidity. Their catalyst is a Friday Factor, and I’m not sure any other day of the week would have been motivated to end the day trending away from unchanged.

So, Friday’s late breakout originated too late to be reliable for extending higher. And avoiding a fourth consecutive intraday downtrend doesn’t prevent resuming them out of the weekend. .

• Details and other markets coverage are discussed in the post-market Wrap recording here.
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