Slow Friday For News, But Expiration Still Looms

The market is up slightly in early trading. Yesterday looked like it was going to be a pretty big selloff, but the market again found its footing late in the day and closed down only slightly on the session.

There is not much in the way of market moving news this morning. We could get some volatility into the close at today is quadruple witching options expiration and also the quarterly rebalancing of the S&P indexes.

Asian markets were lower overnight, led by a 3.2% decline in China; the dollar is bouncing this morning, which is weighing on oil and gold prices, but just barely; the 10-year yield is trading higher at 3.43%; and the VIX is getting a small bounce, up +2.2% to 24.17.

Trading comment: My chart yesterday showed one example of how overbought this market is right now. That is keeping me from making any new buys at the moment, but I will likely look to do so on any shallow pullback. I still think a lot of investors are underinvested and could look to put money to work ahead of quarter-end. This phenomenon could also continue right into October, when many mutual funds have their fiscal year ends.