Still largely bullish action for USA main indexes, with no change to pivot status: 4 of 5 above all pivots, and only IWM below the MarP. IWM tagged its MarS1 today and looks like it could be some kind of trading range low.

But what is really bothering me this week is the VIX. VIX has been one of the most reliable tells on the market for years. I have stated many times on this site that the very best setups are when the 5 USA main index and VIX/XIV all (or nearly all) say the same thing. This kind of line up happens only a handful of days in the year, like last summer's Brexit low and day after, post election, January 3, etc.

And yet, in the last few weeks, VIX has given more fake-outs than at any period I can recall. After the 2/3 VIX confirmation of stock buy signal, the next moves were: 2/28 VIX stock reduce signal, to be follow by big stock gap up; 3/2-3 VIX stock buy signal, to be followed by stocks lower; 3/9 VIX caution signal, to be followed by stock bounce; 3/13 VIX stock buy signal, to be followed by drop.

I can accept this as period of chop or conclude that something explosive is about to happen. I'm not sure.

Portfolio was 110% long and 20% short for 90% net heading into today. IWM looks more like a low, but given VIX I don't want to be fully long. I think better to hold the recent EEM long even though entry not ideal. I'm opting for taking hedge on IWM off, leaving 100% net long; but also taking gains on 1 of 3 XLF, to reduce to 100% long and 1 short hedge remaining on SPY for 90% net long.

SPY, IWM and VIX below.