Matt/Steve, 

there are some interesting articles on the SKEW index in connection with the elevated level of this index. Could you comment on this please - maybe in the weekly newsletter, if not here?
Link1:  http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/15/us-markets-options-skew-idUSKCN0S92MQ20151015
Link2:  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-16/options-market-crash-indicator-hits-peak-panic-surpasses-record-highs

Yellen speaking - or not so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YAEHJvNscs

A long here seems pretty reasonable for a trade (and position size being prudent) in SPX. Possibly, the MA/EMA 100 daily below could give another 30 down points or so before turning up - excluding freak markets were green men from Mars pop up. Or Madoff makes a return. Have a nice weekend!

I'm looking at the potential SPX HS scenario - it's unsymmetrical and seems to need some more months to churn out. Do you have some input on this one?

SPX weeklies 

Matt / Steve - the divergences are pretty strong in oil. What would you expect bottoming action to look like? It's gotta happen sometime - even though the ultrared print all over now indicates it could take several days more, if continued.

Brent dailies

WTI dailies

SPX chart

Congratulations Matt!

Several hedgefunds are shutting down: Link
Here's also some specifics on sugar fundamentals: Link

Those are only emerging economies - not a valid representation of the world economy. But it sums up the basics though, on an uneven basis. 

This may have been one of the reasons for the heavy commodity dumping lately: Link

Armajaro Asset Management LLP plans to close its $450 million commodities fund by the end of July. Not all funds have lost money. Armajaro’s $500 million CC+ fund, run by Anthony Ward, will continue and has made money this year, the person said. The Newedge Commodity Trading index, which tracks hedge funds investing in natural resources, retreated in nine of the past 10 months. “The first half of the year has been difficult and there’s no money going into commodities,” said Christoph Eibl, chief executive officer of Tiberius Asset Management AG, which has about $1 billion in investments.

Could you be anymore precise? :) Just kidding

Here's more about the market breadth (or lack thereof): Link

we are beginning to see signs of deterioration now even among the stronger areas of the market. Witness the action in the equal-weight NDX, as represented by the First Trust Equal-Weight NDX ETF (Ticker, QQEW). Since this fund places an equal weighting on each of the consitituents, its performance is a good barometer of the overall health of the Nasdaq 100. And as the NDX powered some 3% above its previous highs over the past week, the QQEW has been unable to follow suit. In fact, it hasn’t even come within 1% of its June high. Furthermore, the ratio between the QQEW and the market cap-weighted NDX, as represented by the Powershares NDX ETF (QQQ) has recently broken its post-2012 uptrend and is presently plummeting to 2.5-year lows.

As the above chart notes, since the inception of the QQEW in 2006, this combination of conditions has resulted in a median 3-month drawdown in the QQQ of -9.8%. Even the minimum 3-month drawdown following the occurrences of -3.9% was greater than the median drawdown following all days of -3.6%.

I guess many of you browse ZH. They carry this article today by Dana Lyons about the market breadth, etc:  Link

...of the 6,657 days since 1965 when the S&P 500 closed up, Friday had the 6,627th worst breadth.

...  Despite that impressive showing, however, breadth on the Nasdaq exchange was negative in both the issues and , amazingly , the volume. Since 1991, this was just the 28th time the NDX performed such a feat with more declining issues than advancing issues. And it was just the 3rd time ever that it did so with more declining  volume  as well (the other 2 dates were December 27, 1999 and April 24, 2015). And FYI, Friday’s breadth AND volume were the worst of any of the occurrences in this sample.

... Specifically, there have been only 18 prior occurrences since 1991 that the Russell 2000 closed down more than -0.35% while the NDX gained at least +1.20%. Also of interest, Friday marked just the 2nd time that occurred while the NDX hit a 52-week high (January 3, 2000 was the other date).

I hear from the gold traders that the commercials added 30-32k long positions on Friday alone. We need to see this officially confirmed - but the source is usually good. 

Here are some suggestions: 

Energy: XOM, COP, PBR, RDS-A, STL

Oil service: RIG, SDRL, HAL, SLB, ORIG

Bank/insurance: JPM, CITI, AIG, HSBC, DB

Biotech: AMGN, CELG, GILD, BIIB, REGN

Internet: FB, AMZN, GOOG, NFLX,

Tech: AAPL, TSLA, DDD, MSFT, INTC, CSCO

Shipping: FRO, OSGB, LPG, SBLK, SALT

Commodity related: CAT, BHP, VALE, RIO, FDP

Some of the big biotech names could be interesting as well - like the IBB and some of it's components - such as AMGN, CELG, GILD, BIIB and REGN. 

Anybody got any input on how normal an extension outside of the 15 min R2/S2 pivots is in the S&P500? What's the usual marketdynamics then - reverse to the mean? Anybody got any stats or info on this?

On a different note - On various timeframes it's obviously stretched now

http://www.infowars.com/ceo-suggests-nyse-shutdown-was-a-cyberattack/

CBAK appears to have made a cup'n'handle between end of november 2014 and today. 

It's to early to tell for sure - but weeklies since 2010 suggest possible rounding bottom developing.

Looking forward to learn more about your ETF system, Matt. 

By the way - I sent you a message on the BPT message system some weeks ago asking about more details about your track record and trading history for the managed futures account. Could you please send me more info about this? 

Have a nice weekend!