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In the midst of the crap that went on during this trading day due to the not-even-a-little-important UK trade deal, I managed to strap on a pair and actually short some equities. I’d like to high two of them: EFA and XLB.

Truth to told, although there were some truly new positions (like PLTR) these two ETFs already existed in smaller size in my portfolio as of yesterday, but they behaved well enough that I wanted to add to them. The first one, EFA, pulled off the virtually miraculous feat of going down on the day. Indeed, I did a premium post about EFA just yesterday.

My takeaway from this is that whatever direction the world thinks trade talks are moving might be good for the U.S. but isn’t so spiffy for everyone else. The long-term chart of the EFA is still jumping-up-and-down bearish.

The other one is the Materials fund, symbol XLB, whose gap at 85.50 (created, naturally, on Liberation Day) came terrifyingly close to being filled both today and last Friday. It was neither filled nor violated, however, and that gap makes for a squeaky-clean stop.

The longer-term view for XLB shows a superb diamond pattern.

Honestly, the past three weeks have been pretty much like being punched in the face continuously for equity bears, but even after all that, I believe these ETFs represent appealing risk/reward ratios based on the quality of their setups.

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