There was a lot of talk in late September through October about an impending 10% retracement of the markets before the calendar year ends. Still being new to trading, I'm a sucker for some fear and doubt and I've been keeping an eye out for possible signals of this happening.

I wrote a memo back on November 8th about how the VIX was suggesting an increasingly bearish stance by institutions (tl;dr VIX going up = bad) and it (VIX) looks to have worsened.

The VIX has been unable to break below the support (red dashed line) and enter into new lows, and, despite the failed resistance break a few weeks ago, has very strongly closed above it today. It's most recent relative low, shown by the yellow square, is higher than the previous low, and it almost looks to be forming a cup-and-handle which suggests that volatility will continue to increase.

All 3 of my benchmarks have been showing bearish chart patterns and indicators

The $NDAQ tried to break above the resistance of its trading channel, failed and dropped back in, then wedged/flagged upward. Today was...today.

$SPY looks virtually identical.

Oddly, the $DIA appears to be a few days ahead of the other two in that it looks to have flagged and then broken downwards before the other two (yellow square). It's also forming a downward flag/wedge, which you'd normally expect an upward move from, but it's a lone bull lost in a sea of bears at this point.

The RSI is also showing some very clear bearish divergence for both the $NDAQ and $SPY, but I've not shown that so that it's more clear how the volume is acting...

@chasinggreatness made a great post here where he spoke about 'distribution days', and using that concept and Chris' definition, we can see the $SPY and $NDAQ shifting both volume and price. While the Dow Jones didn't strictly have a distribution day by the same definition, the cascading volume of trades over the past few weeks suggest that we're in for more of the same.

Fucked if I know.

I've never been in this situation before and not really one I foresaw. My strategy dictates that, when a daily loss hits a particular threshold, all positions are closed (to realize any remaining gains) and I take at least a week away (to ensure my emotions don't cloud my decisions); after-market action has me within $21 of that threshold.

A part of me (a fookin' huge part of me) wants to jump the gun and close everything. I've been moaning about the VIX for almost a month now and all 3 of my benchmarks are showing miserable signs. But, only a single trade hit SL today ($CHWY had so much promise, and still does) and none of my open positions are breaking the parameters or reasons for entry.

My head is having a hard time choosing between:

My gut, however, is screaming at me to wait. After all, it's only the first day of this supposedly legendary trading week, and there's apparently also something called a 'Santa Rally' to look forward to in December?

Besides, if everything closes and I walk away with a financial loss, it's only a 'real' loss if I don't learn from it - I sure as shit won't ignore the indices and my analysis next time.